dingmer
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Originaly typed
sodlis
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STEST E
DIAGHALIK
aiaf ANL Ms6ea


DIAGHILEV
Dear Miss Morgan Griffiths,
I suppose there is no reason why this matter
should wait until after your decision on the dog-
book, or be in any way connected with it.. So here
goes.
About two years ago I signed up with Thames and
Hudson to write a 60,000 word book on Diaghilev. I
became so fascinated by my subject, especially as I
work quite a lot in the theatre, that I wrote some-
thing over 120,000 words. The time alotted to me,
and the money, were really for a 'quickie' type of
book, with plenty of pictures, and this my MS was
clearly not. Thames and Hudson suggested that the
most profitable course be taken---to put the book
into their World of Art series, which does very well
on both sides of the Atlantic. But this series
allows only for 10,000 words, and for Diaghilev the
ideal was about 33,000. I knew that I had to re-
write my first draft, and give it more time than the
original contract had allowed for, but I saw too many
difficulties in reducing it to about a quarter of
its size.
My agent Robin Dalton (at that time IFA) called
up David Haitley who showed interest. Money was
discussed (I was to buy myself out of the T andH
contract) but the thing petered out---I returned to
Italy, got involved in dogs, Robin went through the
IFA crisis and David Haitley left W.H.Allen.
Today I had lunch with Eva Neurath who owns T and H
and I put the matter to her. They see the virtual
impossibility of turning a long book into a virtual
essay, and they have begun to feel uneasy about their
luck with ballet books, due to a failure or two in
that direction.
Now would you be interested to see my MS---more
as a first draft thrown together against problems
of time and finance---with a view to perhaps making
an English world rights deal? I imagine the subject
couldn't be more right for your list, and I only hope
you haven't already commissioned a book on it.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


NOTE
Writing a book on Diaghilev imposes a great
responsibility because so many people have said
so many different things about him. They have
said belittling things. They have been insult-
ing. Some have credited him with almost nothigg.
In this book I prefer to credit him with almost
everything, because in this I have the support of
two of his closest collaborators---two dancers
and choreographers remarkably different from each
other, and remarkably different in their relations
with Diaghilev too. They testify to a man greater
than any one collaborator could have had an opport-
unity of understanding. These two are Leonide
Massine and Serge Lifar. I derived few facts
from my conversations with either of them.
Those can be derived from books and papers, their
own included.
Also they contradict each other
on a number of important points. But even---
perhaps especially--the contradictions establish
a figure who has not yet been recognised in his
greatness, or rather in the nature of his greatness.
I wish to thank Mrs Igor Stravinsky, Arnold
Haskell, the Russian painter Marevna, as well as
Massine and Lifar, for their help in conversations.


DIAGHLEY- Hotes


ILLU ST RATION S
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ILLUSTRATIONS DIAGHILEV (born 1872, died 1929)
LOCATIONS:
RUSSIA:
St Petersburg-
MARYNSKY THEATRE
PALAIS TAURIDE
THEATRE STREET
Any pictures of the OCTOBER REVOLUTION 1905 in
St Petersburg.
FRANCE: Paris-
GRAND HOTEL (1908)
Hotel de Hollande (1910)
Salon
BOIS DE BOULOGNE, AVENUE DU BOIS DE
d'Automne
BOULOGNE (1908)
GPÉRA 1907, CHATELET 1908.
HOTEL MEURICE, RUE DE RIVIOLI 1918.
GARE DE L'EST 1908.
Montecarlo--
Hotel de Paris, Café de Paris.
Théatre de 1'Opera, and THE BASEMENT
where rehearsals took place.
LONDON:
COLISEUM THEATRE (1909)
COVENT GARDEN DURING CORONATION OF
THE SAVOY GRILL AT THE SAME PERIOD.
DRURY LANE THEATRE (1913)
GENNARO 'S RESTAURANT in GOWER STREET
(CONSULT GENNARO'S 44 Dean Street)
NEW YORK:
PLAZA HOTEL (1916)
METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE (1914)


ITALY:
Venice
HOTEL DES BAINS, LIDO ('20s)
CAFE ON THE PIAZZA SAME PERIOD.
ROME
TEATRO METASTASIO (1914)
TEATRO COSTANZI (1921)
CAFE ARIANA ON THE CORSO (1916)
ANY VIEW OF VIARREGGIO IN 1914.
GENERAL PICTURES
THE PARIS RAILWAY STRIKE OF 1920.
REVOLUTION IN PORTUGAL IN 1918.
ADDENDA
TEATRO SAN CARLO IN NAPLES 1916
GALERIE DES GLACES VERSAILLES 1923
GAITE LYRIQUE (THEATRE) PARIS 1921
STREET LIFE IN PARIS IN FIRST TEN
YEARS OF THIS CENTURY
THE SAME STREET LIFE IN THE TWENTIES


PEOPLE AND THINGS
1) ALBERTO CAVOS, Alexandre Benois' great uncle, who
built the MARYNSKY THEATRE in St Petersburg.
He was of
Venetian origin and had a PALAZZO IN VENICE.
He also
built the St Petersburg BOLSHOI.
This was demolished in
the early 1890s.
We might show the WELCOMING AUDITORIUM
of the Maryksky theatre.
CARICATURES IN THE RUSSIAN PRESS.
There is a lady
in London, known as The Pest, who had collected all the
Russian press of the period.
I am interested in a)
The cartoon of PRINCESS TENISCHEVA as a cow being milked
by the Diaghilev group during his WORLD OF ART (magazine)
days, 1899-1905: she was the pafton of the magazine.
b) Dancers dancing in sacks at the Marynsky when Prince
Wolkonsky ordered longer ballet skirts, 1900.
DIAGHILEV's third exhibition of Russian art at the
huge ACADEMIE DES BEAUX ARTS in Paris, 1900.
4) THE DISCOVERIES AT KNOSSOS IN GREECE whichinspired
DIAGHILEV and BAKST in conceiving L'APRES MIDI D'UN FAUNE.
5) THE FIRST COVER OF THE IMPERIAL THEATRES YEAR BOOK
by Leon Bakst, 1900.
6) VILLA BELLERIVE, at OUCHY in Switzerland where
Diaghilev settled in 1915 for a time.
The Bakst design for LES FEMMES DE BON HUMEUR 1917. (see 11)
8) Eicasso's 'amusing' design for CUADRO FLAMENCO 1921.
9) A PHOTOGRAPH of DIAGHILEV with NOUVEL and SERGE LIFAR
at the Venice lido 1927 shpwing him exhausted (see HASKELL,
DIAGHILEV, published by Gollancz).
10) The LARIONOV costume for MASSINE as the Midnight Sun
in SOLEIL DE NUIT 1915.


The costumes and THE PIAZZA (VENICE) SETTING for
LES FEMMES DE BONNE HUMEUR by Bakst. (zee 7)
12) LARIONOV's setting and designs for CONTES RUSSES,
Massine's ballet, 1917.
13) Picasso's sketches in Rome 1916/17 for PARADE, the
circus ballet.
14) PICASSO's front curtain for PARADE, which was his
debut in the theatre, 1917.
The Paazza Venezia studio used by Diaghilev's company
and by Picasso 1916/17.
GIACOMO BALLA, the leader of Italian futurism,
painted a cubist curtain for the orchestral performance
of THE FIREBIRD, at Rome's Teatro Costanzi, 1917.
17) PICASSO's sketches of dancers rehearsing in
Barcelona where he was to do the decor for TRICORNE,
I have seen excellent PICASSO sketcges at the
GENEVA,
Petit Palais,/and their owner MONSIEUR GHEZ has promised
me access to these.
DERAIN's colour design for FANTASQUE, 1919, at the
London Coliseum.
19) The DELAUNAY designs for CLEOPATRE which dazzled
London at the Coliseum 1918.
20) MATISSE'S settings for LE CHANT DU ROSSIGNOL 1920:
this was his stage debut.
DETHOMAS sketched Nijinsky in every attitude of
practice, after the first ballet season inh908.
See THE COLLECTION OF THE MUSEUM OF THEATRE ARTS
for illustrations.


their final school exmminatiOns that summer, before going
to St Petersburg.


their final school examinations that summer, before going
to St Petersburg.


In Diaghilev's family and forbears there were


In Diaghilev's family and forbears there were


1 dingmlev'. Notoo


PRELIMINARY BIBLIOGRAPHY
PIAGHILEV
Serge Lip (Patran 1940)
*/THEMRE STREET e Tanan Kersavin CCnstaec
CHRONICHE OF MY LIFE a lgm Stravinshy
(Vicls Gnlang 1936)
Zacunner ly
ARno W
HASKELL
Cvicln Galang193H
ae kink 7ballets - Rurse, (Aucu and Uaai
Ghuice Petar hieven
Baller Qune- Amold h
Halalo
(eibubel
la His Tme Cenlre ( - Arnold h. Hedhoee
C Alan - Caade Back
Ma Vie -
Serge hifan Chutclunsos 1970)
(Pasi 1965)
FOKINE - Memsin 7
Baller Mart
Canndre 1961)
Serge Daghiles
Leypy - -


A.Beroi -
Reamieren a
2 ra
Rapria
Ballet (boudon 1947) 80170/f
R: Buckle I lu sennl 1 Dingailer
Choudoa 1955)
SL. Crrij-niev
he D.nghila enlles
Choudon 1753)
A.k-ttas -
D.aghiler (lond
T3R
Achievan
he Binka . # Rallak Resey
LLoaslo 1836)
ROBERT CRAFT -
DOcUmENTS (Nen Yark
/ABensi - /
Mewsin 2vl, honda 1760
Jean Cocfean -Jnumal
(Pare 1965)
Antou Dolin -
Baller GoRomd (hondou 1938)
Dnetonense (hochos)
Wadora Duncant Ms hils (N.Y. 1927)
SAACACBY
(Loub 1913)
A.E. JOHNSON
Te Runsian Ballok EK
Ardsé Leunson
hen Bakse
(Paus
* Paul MAGRIEL
Nijinsk, (Nwy 1946)


BIBLIOGRAPMY
Igm STAAUNSKY F ROBERT CRAFT GRAF-
Cavenatoi. H Iga
Stamins Chondon 1957)
Rohest Cagr - lg. Straviads : The RiG 2 yris
Chadon 1969)
Neal oreshandlr- Scandal and Parade Chmen O
ChstanDea boocant
Lenide Manine-
Memocie Choudoa 1968) *M
Vaslav Nijinchy
Dranfo Diary 19b6 a ANGN mmst)
Romolm Mipius,
Nigih, (Victn Gollans
Jaeue Rivieres
Alowvelle. Ehuka. CPas 1947
Roger SHATTUCK - he Bmngue Yean 1880-1913
(Loubon 1959)
hydin Sokolova- Dancir -
ffn Dinghile
Chondon 1960)
Duglas lospes I
Picasso neatre Choufon 1968)
Araold LHeskele -
Tae Russian gerte in Callol
Two ARTICEES
For
EAIGAISH
NEWSPAPERS, ONE laf 1926, ONIE IN 1829


W.A.PROPERT I
Mo Rursial
Ballet
Riclarl Prckl
Nigag
(Weidofsld 197))
*Dighiw
Bonn Kochus


AANMMMA
Jrnghilev , Yackin:
2 wond 1 Act. -
the Jint
appearnca
0' te megngnie :
Paincen Tenisrbara
L Thup 3rdrehititss,
GRAND
DUKE
VAADAMIR (heepek tin Ballee Leasn Qanis)
3/ hi bmpen,
Lo gaur - arlcd 15
dorc exhililisi,
Ibe
wink 7 Ar ttiad A
eudCigoe)
A deseclo 7 ripine h la,
PRINC<
SERE E
VOLKONSKY, t A limi.
Contene de
GREFFUL HE.
6GAGRIAL ASTRUS
7) Paiicene d gayme
g) Mina Sert.
9 Ol Kaha (tiv Amica Tou-)
10) Sir Joseph Bcecdon Chinr houdou sassor).


DIAGHILEV.
GYPING
170 pogelat à 6 copies
ordinary cover,
plarte oover,
ODANTI


ddlici Bara
Daghuler
Trilo vm
Waltgent 8/
Sotess +
linay Dt:
Peliii
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tacn en to


IALUSTRATIONS
DIA GHILEY. à
FRom
Books
1 Benou Menoini 9ph. P. 225 hiie plotympt
Memoina. Beroi' Suilz Placa :
Srhatinly (vat.colm).rh 1.225
3 Meesnie -M,
Lf i Bellet (Macuillai 1968):ces Jo,
drawry olin oppsita P. la 185.
= Bad
G Rehennis Liturgi 1915- + hydis
Sokolovs At. i batel
Iphotagmfh, gu P.156.
c + Mamnel de falla a te
Aehauba, 1918 agt 88 -
dD.ah. 1917 C'he halad Au
peris plotgp) oyp. P. 88.
e) - D's conpars lcavig caiiapo
Yh. P.41
f) M+ Picanso Poupeir 19/7 -fer4o


Tae Bolsoi thla n Calanl, Jee
fm Beroi. -bote,(- tardn S3.)
Iap. 0.64.


ILLUSTRATIONS FRoM BOOKS
Lt! Haskeele 1 Dinghin CGrlangy 1935) I
hanior -
2. enkir 7 scorer. 1928
Gad tte Pemi
gph.P. 326.
Faune, pk. r268
Foenie derects Kenavine c
rehunal, P. P.200
(lars -
lsadora Junca 5 Bakr
D.ac h. nd pren ie 190 Ph F.ISO
L I -
Slrese:
Kakgnons wedhiy - L budis aie, P22. ( 282.
Incluole Tregilove, Kahermkkags
Prestmpenskeg sa
Sogat - davif
2Kanaviis
1916. fatipeie


recitals and performances of Glinka operas.
The house
had a lodge, stables and a splendid garden. Diaghilev's
wealthy grandfather, Pavel Dmitrievitch, had inherited
the estate on his retirement from the ministry of finance
in 1850, when he was forty-two


Iusals
Lanaine
Thame
5 613e PLojs
- huur,
Choch A Karwvia, lerir - -
feve - -
He Runie
Pars GLac (1900372
setanv.


The Will to Dominate
Serge Pavlovitch Diaghilev was the greatest impresario
of modern times.
He was born in his father's barracks near
Novgorod in Russia on March 19 1872 and he died, world famous
as the originator and director of the Russian Ballet, in
Venice on August 19 1929.
He brought first Russian paint-
ing (1906), then Russian music and opera (1907-8), and
finally Russian ballet (1909-29) to Paris, then the most
promising city in Europe for any artist seeking a patron
and an audience capable of serious judgement.
During the
twenty years of the Ballets Russes Diaghilev not only cap-
tured patrons and audiences from Prague to New York but
did much to form the artistic taste of the western world
for the first half of this century. A 'Diaghilev epoch'
came about-- -in theatre, music, painting, design and
(mainly through Léon Bakst) fashion.
He collected great
dancers, compasers, artists, choreographers and rich
backers with unfailing magnetism.
They complained about
him and often walked out on him, but they never forgot
him and invariably they came back.
He travelled his
company everywhere in Europe, the United States and
South America.
His Hew York season of 1916 was one of
the most successful of his career.
In the Twenties his
name on a programme was a mark not only of value but
surprise. He nearly always did something new and often
shocking.
He looked on himself as a well-born revolut-
ionary. His powerful will (which hated to be crossed)


was behind every detail of the company's life, and the
word 'impresario' describes only faintly the sum-total
of his contribution to ballet and theatre, and to the
artistic formation of the western world in matters of
taste.
There are many ways of writing about Diaghilev.
The usual one is to describe him as a man of unfailing
success. He was ather
born in princely circum-
stances, TT Pussi
vet
and
nobte
mities CIOT
He grew up
adored and groomed.
The houses of both his father and
his aunt Anna Pav-lovna Filosofova were virtually open
salons, the envy of both his schoolmates and his
teachers.
He sauntered through St Petersburg univer-
sity, and the fact that he did not take law seriously
meant nothing deleterious for his fur - - ture. The right
introductions would soon get him into the service of the
Fsar. An uncle of his was Minister of the Interior.
Diaghilev had an aasy charm that turned quickly into
hurt arrogance. He expected the world to fulfil his will
for him.
It was this expectation far more than favourable
circumstances that carried him through his life.
His whole personality spelled success.
It was
felt the moment he entered a room.
There was something
about his gaze that simulatenously melted and excited one.
There was hauteur in it, and a certain contempt, and some
snobbishness---and (the list is that given by his HOTE
implacably loyal friend Serge Lifar) tenderness too
with
a degree of kindness hard to reconcile with the hauteur,
sadness verging perilously on sentimentality.
was tall, or rather he seemed tall because of his compell-
ing presence. He had an enormous head which no known
riskead
delilerale
hat pould fit (it always perched on top/with a hint of taei
burlesque).
He had a way of talking persuasively,
gesturing with one hand and snapping the fingers of the
other.
And that unforgettable look never quite left
his eye---Warm, appreciative, appraising, delving sympath-
etically into the other person, in search of surprising
molivie.
gifts, and always concealing any motive but the most casuall


He had a tendency to flabbiness, with the bored
air of the powerful and well-born man, which could turn
with remarkable speed to tears or rage.
He had thick
and passionate lips, and sparkling teeth. His forehead
was unusually high, his hair, a silky chestnut, with its
white streak.
He spoke with equal nonchalance to a
grand duke or an! artist, and there was no mistaking the
fact that though a snob he felt more at home with the
artist.
He was always most courteous in public, and
this touching quality of considerate attention to others
increased as he grew older. Yet he seemed quite in-
different as to what people thought of him: this haut-
eur provoked many enemies, especially on home-ground
in St Petersburg.
The enemies continued to invite him
to their houses. He was too important---not evven only
socially but, so to speak, in the very pores of his
skin---to snub.
HTS manner was too 'grand' for St
Petersburg.
A real grand duke could hardly take that
seriously, and to many it looked like provincial striv-
ing.
Nor was his nonchalance recognised as a mark of
the grand seigneur: in Russia the top peoplesimply
did not behave like that.
But in Paris and London
they did.
Among people like Robert de Montesquieu
and Comtesse de Greffuhle the nonchalance was a mark
of guarantee.
Prince Lieven called it acting.
The
fact was that it derived from self-assurance. And
this was not a social self-assruance,as it would have
been in a grand duke.
It came from an utter certainty
as to his role in life.


Arnold Taske
Escrnoes
a Strongest
lia ylilev
h. p. porsonal
When ae walked into a theatre
everyone from the stagehands to the prima ballerina was
aware of the fact.
He at once became the centre towards
all performance was directed.
Igor Stravinsky's widow
describes finding him in a Paris theatre at six o'clock in
the morning still putting the last touches to the lighting.
No details escaped him.
When one of the company was his
lover he kept a steady eye on all his movements, and esp-
ecially on his flirtations.
Only in this did he ever
reveal himself.
In professional matters he was closed,
a council to himself, communicating to his dancers only
confidence or censure, never his own worries.
They seldom
realdsed that each production was a certainty only after
curtainrise: until that moment he was in a fever of activity,
telephoning, holding lawsuits at bay, preventing last-
minute strikes, ordering costumea and props and banquets
he could not afford, under a mask of imperturbability.
His face, according to Lifar, was 'monumental': at first
only the mask penetrated-- - -an impression of health and
power that reminded a Russians of Peter the Great (and
indeed Diaghilev's grandmother was a Rumianzov).
His
lips curled slightly---with a touch of brutality.
There
was the wave of grey in his hair, the famous 'chinchilla
that nature had given him as a distinguishing mark of its
own. Yet the mask was mobile.
In fact, anbe you really
looked into . each part, the lips and eyes and the slightly
ironical eyebrows too, and the moustached upper lip udder
ym feott ttat the discerning nose, the Ris tall brow and the rather long chin
Kad
seemed ta trave separate lives of their own, so that the real
face (really that of a dreamer) meltedjwith the mask,
lazily and humourously, and your first impression of the
forbpading Russian aristocrat was gone. It was perhaps
sudden
Boyiserass
in his
laughter, with its hint of hi BS shness, health
and straight character thatpeople felt his indomitability---
rather than in his rages when chairs were smashed and his
stick pounded on the floor (terrified rats ran from the
wainscoting of the Montecarlo practice studio during one of
these fits).


The accounts of Diaghilev by two of his greatest
dancers, Karsavina and Njinsky, as well as those by 1got
Stravinsky and Jean Cocteau/and Michel Fokine- H EEPO
Leonide
an Grigor- A
e a and,Massine are all stories of collaboration
with him, where his advice and his censures were heard,
and saferng of his own preoccupations emerged. A
dancer, like an actor, has far too much to think about
to realise that his producer also has work to do.
all seems so simple: an audience comes to see dancing or
acting---and to the performer the CEEEEL work involved,
except perhaps that of the stagehands, is peripheral.
Even for the gusicians and artists and choreographers
who worked closely with Diaghilev it was difficult to
see how déeply and untiringly he was involved.
They
only knew his spell, and reacted to it. One by one
they gave him their best: and when he was no longer
item
interested in him they most independentof the S eemed
o wilt/cor a time.
careet
The Tact
that Diaghilev's Pe was an anguished
day-to-day struggle.
To an extent that makes the success-
story look the least interesting version of him, he spent
his life on a tightrope, often without a penny in his pocket
or even a company of dancers. And the chief marvel of
his character was that few people ever knew this.
Without the smallest effort at persuasion he managed to
convince everyone round gim that he was looking after
them, and he alone, and that only their problems were
the real ones. Such was his self-reliance in matters
of taste that even in private---even when tumbling on the
floor with Serge Lifar or imitating a pas de deux in his
wihh
bedroom to screams of
never lost his aurora
Misa Sert
laughtert--he
of authority.
His favourites showed him occasional
resentment---he excited lifelong hatred in others---only
because he was always felt to be the master.
He was
more than any of the names he has been given---'impresarno',
'collector of geniuses', 'showman', 'innovator'.
He was
certainly a great impresario: he defined the word, almost.
But in Italian impresario' means little more than a


business-man, and eed
In fact
he financed neither his World of Art exhibitions of Russian
painting between 1899 and 1905, nor his Paris concerts in
1907, nor the later Russian ballet seasons. Yet he did
much more than find the money from other people. He
followed every ballet from the first idea to the fitting of
the costumes.
Hecwould put up his eyeglass and quizz
every prop closely, not only for its decorative value but
its practicability for the dancers.
He once sat at a dress
rehearsal and ordered the gold braid to be stripped off a
fabulous costume belonging to the premier danseur, because
it impeded his elevation. The tailor almost wept.
The
stagehands grumbled and. almost went on strike during his
endless lighting rehearsals.
But his quiet 'Continuez,
s'il vous plait' always brought them back.
Once*when
Michel Fokine, standing among the dancers during a reherasal,
clutched his left side in a reference to the liver,
Diaghilev's voice came clearly from the dark stalls,
'The right-hand side, Michel, the liver's on the right-
hand side'.
The argument as to what ballets he conceived
and what he developed from the suggestions of others will
goon as long as contemporaries of his remain alive.
Hardly a dancer, a designer, a composer, a choreographer
wants to give him credit for anything except a strong will
and a dominant personality.
He let other people's ideas
flow over him, then suddenly he was lyanching into a project
as if it were all his own.
He took a vague first idea
and swept it into the area of the practical.
Without him,
would that first idea have come to anything?
Theidea
of taking Russian ballet to Paris was not his.
Pavlova
Adelg
were the pioneers u
aC eypec ch
and/a-number
audiences
Bolm
1 re
He was even rather indifferent towards
ballet in the early days.
Without him the western world
would have continued to see individual Russian bellet
performances, but it would not have been galvanised by a
whotly
whet new artistic concept.
Nothing in the arts in Paris
was the same the morning after that première on May 19


Far from being-one-who simply stimulated other
ing
people to new ideas, encouragea them in their work,
'ing
iug
urged them through periods of doubt, arousea them
1ing
when they were
them from obscurity
flagging.,lauortes
into # world of publicity, Biaghi = Ler) took an integral
and essential part in every production, without which--
no matter whether the setting was by Benois or Bakst
or Picasso, the music by Satie or Stravinsky or Prokov-
iev, the dancer Nijinsky or Karsavina or Anna Pavlova-
that production could not have existed in any respect.
His part was not simply that of an overseer either.
It consisted of directing the lighting rehearsals (at
a time when few thought lighting suficiently important
to put into the hands of a specialist), the important
costume rehearsals, and the cutting of boring or trifling
choreography and music, the inperpolation of new
scenes, and the personal management of armies of carp-
enters, electricians, prop men and tabs-operators
backstage who learned---after the first stormy Russian
'invasion' of the west in 1908---to love him.
From childhood Diaghilev felt the need to dominate.


hes
mHr
According to Serge Lifar it was Haghite
'infidelity'
that stirred his collaborators to hatred.
He took from them
what he needed, and only when he needed it.
Ravel, Stravinsky,
Pavolva, Fokine, Massine all experienced a cooling of his
interest in them. Ravel even wrote to the Times about it,
and Diaghilev's shrewdly kind and forbearing reply was
published too.
It is astonishing to hear the Russian over-
tones of Ravel's Daphnis and Cloe---the last thing to be
expected of a Parisian impressionist' composer.
But such
was the magic of Diaghilev's sway. It entered unnoticed,
and was(taken/anvariably for self-inspiration.
When the
youthful Massine mounted the staircase of te gaudy Moscow
hotell meaning to refuse Diaghilev's offer to take him into
Raup
n fact
his company he pould hardiyforesed/ehat he would =
say yes, but Once he had done so hé put it down not to the
his oun
spell Diaghilev had cast on him but tol a presentiment of
futute. good fortune. . insidon H
That was precisely
how Diaghilev's spell worked. Yn Hought war ymr u,
Nijinsky, Stravinsky, Karsavina, Picasso, Dérain,
Debussy, Prokofiev---great names illuminated his whole
career; and he had a flair for seeming to bring them into
being rather than simply attracting them to him.
Vaslav
Nijinsky was a dull young man before he joined Diaghilev's
Said
company . Anyone) could have foreteld that he would oe olay
danciig
hig un
School
make a superb dancer, but few could have foreseen tat supe D
leap through the window in Le Spectre de la Rose in 1911
ghich made him famous overnight.
Lifar too (he came
to Paris with Nijinsky's sister, at that time teaching
ballet in St Petersburg) was unpromising when Diaghilev
first auditioned him.
In his case it was difficult even
ika
to foresee A superb dancer!
But Diaghilev disregarded
doubts
Nijinska's) disbelief and fell in love with cette petite
panthère noire as he called him. He turned him into Marsine,
Hijinskys successor, not simply by sending him along to
Enrico Cechetti for rigofrous dancing lessons but by
cpn
taking him on his little grand tour of Italy---an education
he gave all his favourites,even ghen they were female.


I t duering room
He once threw a man ac T C
OOM against the wall/
for having put his own wife's name higher than Karsavina's
on the company's billing. He flitted in and out of rehears-
als with his entourage. He was almost never satisfied
with what he saw.
Nijinsky's widow describes him simult-
aneously giving orders to the chief electrician, conferr-
ing with the conductor, answering questions from three
reporters and discussing business with his administrative
secretary.
To the outsider (rather than to his collabor-
ator) he seemed to be planning every detail of what finally
emerged on opening night.
And his career did show a remark-
ably straight line, as if he had based his projects squarely
on the thoughts he outlined as a youth during his editorship
in St Petersburg of the World of Art magazine.
When the
curtain went down on the first Diaghilev ballet in Paris in
1909 the old dimly-lit and rather frowzy productions that
see
Paris was accustomed tol were rendered historical.
Paris
talked about him for a year. His season. started 'oriental'
fashions.
Paris saw in his ballets a Russia it had never So
muchjguessed at, fierce and in brilliant primary colours,
so vigo: rous that it seemed 'barbaric', but splendidly and
exhilaratingly so. After 1912, his year of unquestioned
triumph in that city, his support for a new artist meant
his acclaim.
Without him Stravinsky's music might have
been thought simply ugly, or might not have taken place.
achicuu L
Perhape Picasso bings have needed decades more before
an au à licuce.
undenatead One of his last choreographers, Balanchine,
found work with the Russian Ballet extremely difficult-s
E hy -for the simple reason
deguntalvte
that by this time the great master had, kst his interest
in ballet as: an art form.
Diaghilev's first patroness in Paris, the Comtesse
de Greffulhe, inclined to think him just another young
adventurer when he walked into her drawing room for the
first timel Then he began talking about the paintings on
her wall, and played her piano.
Within a few days she
had introduced him to Gabriel Astruc, Paris's most active
impresario, and the first Russian concerts and operas


were arranged.
For the first ballet venture Astruc
obtained backing from six of the richest men in France,
including Henri de Rothschild.
Preghitey
1 backers make an extraordinary list---the Princess
Tenischeva when he was a young editor in St Petersburg,
the Prince Wolkonsky whose assistant he became at the
imperial theatres in Moscow from 1899 to 1900, the Grand
Duke Vladimir who helped him with his first season in
Paris, the Tsar himself (subsidising his exhibition of
Russian art in Mscow in 1904), the Princess de Polignac
and Madame Misia Sert (his dearest friend), Coco Chanel
and Sir Joseph Beecham, who supported his first London
season in 1910 for King George's coronation, Lord Rothermere
who helped to keep Diaghilev's company together in the
lean years of the war, and the king of Spain, and in the
derdion
United States Otto Kahn, L Diaghilev cajoled, pleaded,
te Motipalz
hute argued, browbeat.
He worked endlessly at an idea and
oprra
only let it go when it had been fulfilled and (rarely)
when he was bored with it. He discarded his old product-
ions as things of the past. He laughed so much at a
revival of his own Schéhérazade that he broke two aisle-
seats.
Breakaway companies were formed by his ex-dancers
and ex-collaborators-- --Pavdova, Ida Rubinstein, Nijinsky,
Massine---but they seldom achieved his standards of prod-
uction or his originality.
He knew his epoch. He seemed
to divine its coming needs.
gardstheerd
keer
Even his public scandals
long
helped him
was /before the succés de scandal became a
recognised commercial objective in the arts). In 1912
Paris divided between the Faunistes and the anti-Faunistes
after Nijinsky's erotic movements in L'Après Midi d'un
Faune, but the Figaro's campaign against Diaghilev capsized,
just as the furore over Stravinsky's Sacre du Printemps
died a year later.
It was clear that Diaghilev meant to
be revolutionary and to drag his most conservative friends
with him, not a drfficult thing for him to achieve since


he was, as they said, un homme du monde jusqu'au bout des
ongles. Even when he planted a red flag on the stage for
a performance of The Firebird in 1917, soon after the Russian
revolution (of which he had high hopes), there was no great
outcry in either Paris 1b Rome, only polite warnings from
friends. A Diaghilev production meant something new but also
authentic. He found it necessary to put his name on the
programmes only after imitators had sprung up. And after
that the name was look&8as a guarantee of value.
Hitherto Diaghilev's homosexuality has
been
he cOuTO Tind 0 B
in L
woman
a Haskell) or by doubles
IST
had a great deal to do with BR
out
Russia, both before and after the Revolut-
c major
ion, and it was perhaps tire
Tef cause of the company's
continual distresses in the twenty years of its existence.
No one in the company could help noticing his affairs with
Nijinsky and Lifar, and his love for Massine, if only because
he took no trouble to hide it.
His jealousies were loud
and spectacular.
He would sueep into Lifar's bedroom
if he heard a faintly suspicidus noise. Once he pushed
open E Lope door, shouting, 'NoW what's going on?
sure someone's been here---I can smell the perfumet', just
lite
after the aing dancer had got rid of a German girl who
wanted to sleep with him. When Lifar
danced with.Karsavina Ittayh
Fsits
as an equal for the first time in 1926 Diaghilev, renchanted
with them both as his special protegés, became suddenly
jealous and threw Karsavina's huge bunch of roses which she
wilk lin
had presented to Lifar out of his hotel window into the
dlule
cowrtyard. Lifar/ tried to get them back by tying his sheets
Trng
aelo
together and lowering himself out of his window but
2ame
Diaghilev stopped him and a stupendous row ensued, one of
many that shook hotel walls from Rome to London.
laneer to steeumb
1mo


It was by no means easy for a young mhale dancer to
resist Diaghilev's charm, particularly as it went with
authority. He was in everything the aristocrat. His hands
were surprisingly small, pale, plump but delicate, and he
walked rather slowly and deliberately, even in youth, as if
his feet (too were/small compared with his heavy, broad-
shouldered frame. He dressed immaculately, and even in
his worst periods of desitution, when he could not afford
new dress clothes, his linen gleamed spotlessly white.
According to Cyril Beaument, whose ballet-shop Diaghilev
sometimes visited when in London (christening it the
Boutique Fantasque after one of his most successful ballets),
he spoke softly and suavely on the whole, with ataressing
tones and His manner of laying a gentle hand on one's wrist
for a moment while saying 'Mon cher ami' was - irresistible.
Behind his mask of indifference he watched and listened
carefully, a quality young people are invariably quick to
notice in adults.
One talked in his presence. Alovealt
assuctationwithin promised more
5a Tet
ancer and worked
Tad
L her real t menh You stood the chance of being turned
into. an artist.
For Diaghilev, sex was never a casual
matter.
He never liked 'boys' as such, though two or three
well-dressed young men always accompanied him. He barred
effeminate youths from his .company. No trace of effeminacy
was allowed to slip past his own mask.
He loved the 'wald
animal' in Nijinsky, the 'black panther' in Lifar.
Above
all he loved transforming them into thinking artists, by
a process of education as suave and gently persuasive as
his own manner of speech.
An unfledged boy was soon in-
toxicated.
There was no one like Diaghilev.
You could
even smell him---that subtle almond perfume that tane from
the hair lotion he used (available only in Paris).
And
then you could never quite predict when something would
anger him---and he would turn on you with £ quick: snarl
and say something cutting. Like all homosexuals of the
dominant type he liked his young men to be available all


the time, even when there was no question of sex between
them.
The young Sacheverell Sitwell was serving in the
Grenadier Guards when he joined Diaghilev's little circle
in London in 1918, and always had to hurry back to Aldershot
before midnight.
Diaghilev could not understand this at
all and one evening burst out in Ftench, 'Who is this Aldershot
who insists on you always being back by midnight?
Is she
your mistress?' It was his fierce attachments, So ready
pryfersimed
to burst into jealousy, that caudedjupheaval. Nijinsky's
famous marriage to Romola plunged him into the most desperate
gried_not only because he felt he had been abandoned by a
trllet
lover: his/company had been abandoned by a great artistr
and his own protégé. The two things were one for him.
An artistic association was a personal association which
overrode family and even business.
He was quite as possess-
Tamara
But
ive towarda)karsavina.
L when sex entered into it there
as le
was a demoniac element h
bhrenteredeVET 2 un cound nn
When his.later favourite Massine fell in love with Vera
Diaghulw
Savina hjurged her to sign a contract renouncing him,
after which she would be offered leading roles.
She did not
sign, and the result was the loss to the company of another
great dancer. ShoandMassine,
SK andRomola
bef
them, formed breaktiay ompanya Diaghilev's
towasd, ka
domenale hin Ceveh Bons Kozhno
favourites never managed to compromis
endh oais lpe
auth
He never (let them feel that they coulgiord it
over other dancers or, least of all, be his voice in copany
affairs.
But professional resentment was ofterthe result.
Michel Fokine left the company when Nijinsky was encouraged
to choreograph new ballets- aud rerealucl ahnse olnul Romocexuneils.
In his diary, written when his mind was breaking down,
Nijinsky wrote about his first meeting with Diaghilev:
'Lyov' (Prince Lvov) 'introduced me to Diaghilev, who asked
me to come to the Europa hotel where he lived. I disliked
him for his too self-assured voice, but went to seek my luck,
I found my luck.
At once I allowed him to make love to me.
I trembled like a leaf.
I hated him, but pretended,
because I knew that my mother and Twould die of hunger
otherwise'.
Massine A TSA
meet is


h P
ATT F
Diaghilev, hadbeccom
ope,
as much for
1 daneer
I equal footi
TOS
COTOUS aTa
palle
ue WOTT
expee cll 3
could never resist any-formof human beauty, fin men Ur
romen
was Tike an 2 a anchem
TIS
When he
was at ease his eyes gere invariably half-closed---1ike
'one of those seated figures of Buddha', 9 as Cyril Beaumont
put it---and this was the way he watched creatures of
particular beauty, in movement and expression, like Kar-
savina and Anna Pavolva. But the male brony was more
aesthetic for him. According to Nijinsky's widow.
sster
n caveoatioi,
Homota. he wout
- mmes pour/scorn of the female bodyk
and it was difficult for anyone listening to him not to
share the contempt, he was so vehement.
To Gabriel
Astruc in Paris, before beinging over a ballet company for
the first time, he said, 'You French have fine ballerinas
but no idea of what the male dancer can be!' He talked
about 'our Vaslav'. His homosexuality was thus in some
ways the hub of his interest in the ballet. As a young
wog
man he hadbeen far more interested in opera, and had to
be persuaded by Pavlova wit
T TsDand
try
1908 and I Gabriel Astruc, and ty
Nijinsky, not to mention Alexandre Benois, hefore formig
Gralles
olia suh
hia companyy All these people got the impression that
were
ladose,
they alone hadbeen responsible for hi's decision/ but in
fact he hed talked to Robert Bruseel about the possibility
of showing Russian ballet in Paris as early as 1906, in
Moscow. BUt the importance for him of living in an
entourage of young men, and being responsible for the
education of particularly gifted ones, cannot be exagger-
ated.
The ballet world made +
- le S DTe
end
made encounters like
tta
I described by Nijinsky
- 5 istre possible throughout
his life.
azed IU
HCit 1
Aceerding to Alexandre et
WHOKTEW him
student days, he had an astonisning insight into


He may well have 'assaulted' the young Nijinsky,
having seen the 'wild animal' in him.
Yet many years
later Nijinsky told his wife, 'No, I don't regret my
relations with Serge Pavalovitch, even if ethics con-
demn it'.
Diaghilev saw those relations as a quest
for truth, and in that 'uplifting'. Ilke many homo-
Re saw
lattn -
sexuals, he Bav the natural sex-act as in some way de-
grading/, a routine preliminary of conception. Speak-
ing of delights he himself had never experienced,
he said that: marriage was - positively dangerous.
tete
Homen-were rath e wiut.
He had numberlessarguments
about it all with Léon Bakst, WHO-TES a defiantly
passionate lady-killer.
Diaghilev maintained that to
be a real artist you had to Karr a mixture of the male
mjm
and femalef When he heard of the death of a married
man he would say, 'There you aref---ifss the most
harmful thing in the-world---one might have expected
sarol
itt'
All 'great men' were homosexual toof--then Fe
quoted the names of the surprisingly few who were,
certaci
and even these were not ctear eases (Frederick the
Gteat, Julius Caesar, Wagner, Tchaikowsky).
Yet
Prince Lieven---wha knew them both---felt that Diagh
Baksl
iev was mueh the less depraved man of the two, Lot Diaglilev.
He took his affairs with the devoted seriousness
other men give to marriage: that his marriages were
harmful, in the nervous alarm they threw him into,
there is no doubt.
And perhaps that was why he
attacked marriage as such. Unlike so many homo-
seuaals, he did not see women simply as effemninate
men, and find what he saw distasteful for that reason.
But certainly he could not accept them, much less see
the 'divine mother' in them. Like all men, he needed
them. The deepest relation he ever had was probably
with Misia Sert, as much for its lack of compromising
sensual attachments as anything else.
He was never
quite free of the prude in him, from his youthful days.
It became transformed into a more serious, and more
truthful, fear of the engulfments of the flesh.


The male affair was essentially not its volutp-
tuous part for him but an experience vibrant with dreams
and new ideas, an exhilarating dialogue of the kind that
could not take place, he supposed, between a man and a
woman. He had great powers of persuasion.
Little
wonder that it took a boat trip to South America,
far from Diaghilev for the first time, to show Nijinsky
that he was no homosexual after all.
'He enlarged the scope of my artistic emotions; he
educated and formed me, not by ostentatious methods, not
by preaching or philosophising.
A few casual words
fetched a lucid conception, an image to he, out of the
That is Karsavina speaking, in her Theatre Street.
Diaghilev's finest dancers were simply his 'children'.
They were all the home he ever had. For twenty years he
went from one hotel to another in every part of Europe.
invandied us ta
leaving.his underwear behind at the last one).
Nijinsky tried to persuade him befone
tonld War
to buy a house in Montecarlo, where the company had its
headquarters.
But Diaghilev, coutd
imself
toto
He hated any too precise ad
celc
articulatejself-
definition/ He mould undertasé the most uncomfortable
Cohe 2
journeyg/to avoid writing a letter. He preferred cities
yasel,
to the countryside, and was nover at the picnic parties lis STuslel
- lre
uy gaed. If he did turn up he looked incongruously
urban.
It was the marvellous homelessness of the imagin-
ation that he enjoyed. He once said that the most he


ever derived from ballet was his 'keep in the best hotels,
and the great privilege of a.seat at the Russian Ballet'.
Arnold Haskell's claim that Pasdlato top-rank artists ended up
with far more money than he ever had is probably true.
P late,
He paid them well,and often deposited sums of money in
their accounts simply as a gesture.
Money, like/home?
was really of little interest to him, compared with the
imaginative excitement it made possible---in the theatre,
once
at the dinner table.
He was an enormous eater, and een
wferchy
had an arrangement with a London restaurant the tt he shoule
seugra dixh
always receivel/a double portion of uhatr
rdered for the
price of one. He had his table at the Savoy Grill, at
the Hotel de Paris in Montecarlo,)the Grand Hotel in Paris, al-
the Hotel des Bains at dn the Lido.
In every city---Viar7esgio,
Florence, Rome, Madrid---he made his little corner where
great
amid the datter dish
thejdialogue eeert on tothe
A never smoked,
lururious hotel atmoapher
IIT Ter he oined
Fer
redroom which made him
lt muo
<per uh
Diaghilev LE
at home, conferring in his Rorel,
suite with his artists and musicians, Ed making endless
long-distance phone-calls and enjoying his lobster dinners.
He hated keeping accounts, and for this reason the company
puton A
was never/made limitedk eazI like dishonest people', he
once said, 'You don't have to be particular in your
dealings with them'. But he was impeccably honest himself.
One physical home he might be said to have had---
Venice, for him the loveliest city in the world, perhaps
because LA tides tat flowee through itseach veris day, Werst a see us
to w ash
A Can o Re c
llzing)
L away its definitions, renderog even a walkf D
ts - alle an act of imagination.
Within a few hours
of his arrival back in this enthralling contradiction of
a city he looked ten years younger, and became the gay
and easy man he essentially was. He knew every church
in Venice, and there his little thinks' as he called
them, about the future of his ballet company, were/most


fruitful in new ideas.
It was in the Piazza, sitting at
one of the aafé tables, that the revolutionary Faune was
conceived, and that Nijinsky took his first strange angular
steps in the 'new' choreography.
Diaghilev was a drug-addict.
Most of his life he was
dominated by the 'little powder'.
It accountp perhaps for
the sleepy gaze and the pallor (contrasting with the red-
cheeked health of his youth), and DE his sudden exhilarations
and furies.
As he suffered shock after shock, of a kind
that would have ended the careers of many of the brilliant
people round him, he nedded the 'little powder' more and
more.
Not even his most successful years in Paris were
smooth.
The shock of opening Figaro on the morning of
May 20th 1912 and finding, instedd of the usual review,
a note from the editor explaining why he had refused to
allow a teview of the scandalous Faune to be printed,
must have been one of the greatest of his career, since
treslen
it seemed to premise the ruin of his company. 1
cat
are spoke J tho 5
eraui ver
TOT shed
pe o2
S D ast
COOM
The Russian
na me/
SI paper had simply
the propased
USSLE
ente (not unil 45 ACT LY
Lagro was
ppDOsed 3 tie entente,
No one could have fore-
seen that the famous Rodin would publish an article in
another newspaper a few days later defending Njinsky's
'erotic' movements, and the Russian Ballet in general.
It swung opninion against the Figaro, and even that news-
paper's subsequent campaign against Rodin failed.
But of all the shocks Diaghilev hadtto facer--and
hardly a month between 1909 and the year of his death
was without one---artistic scandals were the least.
The worst were those lightning strikes inside the company
just before curtainrise, the sudden: 1 defection of a major
dancer and above all the debts involved by his wantonly
lavish productions. The First World War dispersed his
for atime
company and cut him offl not only from the new talent in


Russia but from the glittering and essentially aristocrat-
ic audience he had built up in London and Paris since 1909
(they never took their seats again).
In the lean years
after that war, when he was forced to recruit non-Russian
dancers and give them Russian names, it was chiefly Lord
Rothermere the newspaper-chief who kept the company going,
but negotiating with his lordship was a crucifixion all on
its own.
Diaghilev would return from the a long-distance
call to him looking haggard and frightened.
In the trad-
ition of the Paris Opéra Lord Rohermete was the protector'
A A
of one of the company's dancers,aan major roles had to be
found for her-just the kind of thing Diaghilev detested
and would otherwise have refused vehemently.
That he was superstitious in such a monstrously
changeable world, which rewarded success with destitution
(and vice versa), is perhaps no surprise.
He was horr-
ified if he saw a cat cross his path, even a black one,
and would walk a whole block to avoid it happening.
If a visitor put his hat on the table it meant a big
financial loss, if he put it on the bed it meant sick-
ness. He would yell, 'For God's sake take it off at
Salt must never be spilled.
Number 13 was
bad news. Passing under a ladder was simply suicidal.
In fact all the little superstitions that mneraLe mus
all were in him matters of obsession.
During the 1907
cholera epaiemic in St Petsrburg he would constantly
pause in front of mitrors and put out his tongue to see
if it was turning black.
His horror of infection was
so great that, speaking with Benois over the telephone
once in Paris,he actually asked him to speak away from
his
the mouthpiece because one of Bencis children had the
measles! He travelled about in closed carriages in the
most gweltering weather, a muffler round his mouth, for
fear of catching glanders from the horses.


He was always well wrapped up against draughts, especially
in England where he told everyone, 'The mania for fresh
air and open windows here is positively dangerous'. As
for sea voyages, they were the worst single ordeal he
could think of.
In his one Atlantic crossing he wore
two lifebelts night and day, and spent most of his time
pacing up and down his cabin, when not exhorting his valet
to pray for their safety. A fortune-teller had once
predicted that he would die on water.
And indeed he did
die in Venice.
He emerged from each crisis a little more tired but
looking remarkably the same, only a shade heavier and slower
to those who kaew him well.
He told Karsavina after the


first War that keeping the company going through those
years had proved almost beyond his strength. 'Believe me,
I knew not how I should meet the morror.
The day over,
I went to bed with a sense of temporary respite from the
inevitable.
I used to make up my bed in the morning---
There, little mother! I may not own you tonight!' Then a
T New York offer came out of the blue and he was saved
h.p again. It was always like that. But during the crises
He con-
trolled his mask with remarkable steadiness.
During a
strike in the company just before a gala performance in
Montecarlo he addressed the assembled dancers, apparently
as warmly suave and calm as always, nejther begging nor
1 Hose
commanding.
Only the one or two
who knew
him intimately were aware of the unusual slight pallor on
his cheek. He got his way and the evening's performance
was a triumph.
On another occasion Lifar refused to
dance the title role of Le Fils Prodigue and lay in bed
instead of going to the theatre.
Diaghilev sat at his
side to all intents and purposes absorbed in reading a
newspaper.
The time for the first ballet
evening
ofthe
came but Lifar sagad +
Ked. A ve
At the last moment
he leapt I
d and began changing. And That evening
his dancing
the was superts.
A crowd pressed into his dressing room.
Diaghilev was at the very back, thetears pouring down
his face, no doubt partly from relief after his arduous
self-control.
P He #
never lost his presence of
mind.
It was an almost mystical quality in him, proof
against rebellious stagehands and threatening managers.
thel times LOO
Once he strode into
Karsavina's dressing room when she was naked and sitting
in her bath. He simply looked at her with a smile and
said, 'Tata, que vous Étes jolie!' and then, Rehearsal
tomorrow at ten'.


The Provincial 'Barin'
At 'Bikbarda', the Diaghilev country house surrounded
by forty thousand acres of estate, there was usually a great
deal going on.
But the moment the piano began to play
or someone started singing the shouting and laughter and
the children's games stopped and everyone took a seat to
listen.
'Even the children' (it is Diaghilev's step-
mother's description) 'arrive on tiptoe and sit quietly,
and there is a silence which a moment before seemed in-
conceivable. This family of musicians, in which even the
smallest boys whistle a Schumann quintet or Beethoven
symphony as they stroll about, is starting its ritual'.
Among those ritualists' the greediest and most passionate
was perhaps the boy Seriozha Diaghilev.
And his part-
icular passion was Tchaikowsky.
He Reart many Tchaikowsky
songs sung by his step-aunt Anna Panaev.
She understood
them so well that Tchaikowsky himself loved to listen to
her, and his Den li tsarit was said to have been written
for her. As a child Diaghilev was taken to see the
Telaikovetueg
composer; at that timerin the late Eighties-fwell-known
but not at all popular. He wàways remembered that visit to
'Uncle Petia' in Klin, andonly for a brief period in
his life, in the Twenties, cooled towards him, attack-
ing/(together him
with Donizetti and Gounod) for too much
melody and 'simplification'.
This was no doubt under
the Ffench influence.
But on his deathbed the thought
of Tchaikowsky's music brought tears to his eyes, and
he told Lifar that in all music, except for Meistersinger
and Tristan, nothing could approach the Sixth Symphony.


'Bikbarda' had been in the family for at least half
a century.
It lay partly in the Perm province, partly
in the Ufa province, with two large houses, two distill-
eries and a thirty-room mansion in Perm itself, capital
wumen
of the province.
It was here that thejchildren) End-WHCT
fke
the family spent the best six months of Gel year, devising


recitals and performances of Glinka operas.
The house
had terraces and a lodge, stables and a splendid garden.
Diaghilev's grandfather, Pavel Dmitrivitch Diaghilev, had
inherited it in 1850 when he was forty-two and turned the
estate into a highly profitable concern.
The freedom
had suited him. He had found both the army and the Ministry
of State Domains too restrictive, and enjoyed running his
own business while his family of eight children divided its-
time between Birkbarda and an apartment on two floors on
Furstadskaya Street in St Petersburg.
It was not an easy
life for Anna Pavlovna, his wife, especially when, five
years later, he 'came under the influence of local monks
and began lavishly endowing monasteries.
The more money
he made the less he seeméd to like it: According to his
wife it all started at Peterhof, where they had rented a
large villa belonging to the Rubinstein family for the
summer.
It was a cheerful place with balconies, and
sometimes difty people sat down to table.
After an opera
peeformance in the evening there would be late tea on the
balcony Lfrto the dining room.
Apart from the now nine
Diaghilev children there were five Buikoff shildren (adopt-
ed by Pavel Dmitrivitch after their mother, Anna-Pavlovna's
siater, died), and two of Anna Pavlov: na's first cousins,
the sons of Count Feodor' Petrovitch Litke., And there was
16 lok agter
all -
a little army of nurses, governesses and tutors/ Mione
day Pavel Dmitrivitch disappeared for a couple of weeks h4,
after saying that he was going to St Petersburg to draw a
large sum of money from the Treasury. - His wife went in
ghim
searchand discovered from the porter of their'town-houge
that he had gone off in the company of a "lame, red-headed
some doys
He returned to the house eventi H her, thin and
pale, without a rouble in his pocket. That was the first h p.
crisis in a life of increasing self-mortification.
His
wife began to hate monks with a venom which only served
to divide her frol him further.
He would have ecstasies
in his room and lie motionless on the floor, his arms
stretched out in the form of the crucifixion.
He would
crush Jerusalem crosses of mother-of-pearl and try to
swallow them. The crisis itself was brief, and he


became quieter, but never the old Pavel who had enjoyed
Aever appeased opai ti
banquets and music and masked balls and plays/ He Esd
In a diff
always adored
Hestil
ereut
lifet
way
now.
t He was distant from his family, so
much so that for long periods he would keep to his room
and see only his wife. One Sunday he put five thousand
rubles into the plate at the cathedral of St Sergius,
and his wife promptly fished it out again, asking him if
he thought it right to deprive his own children in this
way.
The little Diaghilev was eleven when his gzandfather
died in 1883, leaving a less valuable estate than in its
heyday twenty me
ty years before but nonetheless
emough
still substantialjto ake inheritance. for both his son
Pavel Pavlovitah, a jovial and charming army officer,
and Diaghilevshinsel
faltir.
was
Diaghilev had preren born in his father's quarters
at the Selistchev barracks on the banks of the Volkhov.
Although he was safely delivered, the labour was a terrible
one because of the unusual size of his head, and his
mother Jenia died a few days later.
His father was
twenty-five at the time, gay and very musical (he had
studied under the famous Czech teacher Rotkowsky) and
had a fine tenor voice.
Unlike his father he found
wife
army life congenial.
The loss of Maeg was a fearful
blow for him, and he was transferred to the barracks of
the Horse Guards in Shpalernaya Street, St Petersburg,
So that he could be with his own family. again After
two years he married again, and a remarkable thing
happened.
The entire family began not only to adore
the newcomer, Elena Panaev, but to regard her as its
brains and spiritual centre.
She too was musical,
indeed her family out-sang andout-played the Diaghilevs,
from
Auha ulseady
as c
ap art
and her sisterjwas ayfamous Ha
t siurg singer,/the
Berg
mistress of Count Alexandre Adlerberg, Alexander 11's
minister to the imperial court and the owner of a
TReir
fabulous musical library.
Her father was such an
ardent lover of Italian opera that he built his own
private theatre where Caruso, Battistini, Zembrich and


Tamagna performed.
Elena Valerianovna and her debonair
husband ('Polushka ') did not keep a salon So much as an
open house for their numerous intimate friends.
Bikbarda the family alone was large enough.
She herself
described the house
hermemoies:
'Never and nowhere
did I see a verandah like ours at Bikbarda...just a plain
Russian wooden verandah, with pillars and a roof, that
stretched along the whole southern wing of the one-stroied
house, ending in a loggia. Here, on this loggia, we
would generally ait to take tea, as we watched the sun
slowly setting...
In summer, part of the: loggia would
be used for meals, and could easily accomodate some fifty
people. On the balcony itself numbers of sofas and
old shiny chintz-covered stools were arranged...
The
descendants of the owpers of Bikbarda consisted of four
sons and four daughters; and these, with their wives,
husbands and children, altogether totalled fifty souls...
There comes a drone of voices and peals of merry laugh-
ter, which goes on increasing until the bewildered guest
suddenly finds himself in the midst of a noisy, irrep-
ressibly gay crowd.
Fashionably dressed women, chiadren,
officers, students, schoolboys, hurry to and fro, or
bustle hither and thither, to the sound of loud kisses
on every side.'
Social climbers tended to stay away, name-droppers
found the house rather boring.
You dropped in---and stayed,


for
Some
recital, an opera, rambling talk, a dinner party. a she Elena
Hat ma
had peri
emi nine giftf thet of
enclosed
making a home feel warm and emor Ane yet free. She was
A b
certainly the greatest single influence on the young
Diaghilev, and during his Russian years he did almost
nothing important without opening his heart to her.
She taught him never to say 'I cannot'.
'You must
forget that PHREse, phaase , 1 she told him, 'Mnen you want to you
always can'.
More than that, she helped form his later
artiitté
gift tfor unswerving judgement inart especially/music,
by demonstrating how the least intellectuality was foreign
to appreciation.
He learned to respond to music 'with
his entrails', as D.V.Filosofov said, and to find the
And
form precisely there, in his own feelings. L ft was
caltolicls
perhaps in his stepmother's easy and unpretentious povers
sou T knadledge, that Diagh = et he
inher
later Career.
found the/model for his future self
When Karsavina
talked about the 'uncanny intuition' with which he 'set
fasle
in motion hidden springs' in the artist, it was this
lkas
complefenes JA
allogell
thout
C [intellectuality (aiscussions' and books
Once,
rather
durins
bored him)"; tishe 'k
was referring to.
When = TaS
alsfor
rehearsing the part of Echo in Narcisse, he wandered from
the stalls and said very casually, passing on quickly (as
he always seemed to be in those early days of the company,
'Don't trip lightly---I see rather a monumental figure,
a tragic mask---Niobe'.
And it was this last word that
changed everything for her and set her on 'the mournful
ou I les tread of sleepless
In Thamar, just when she was
cnesl roles
despairing, he murmured two things, Omission is the
essence of art' and 'Livid face-- --eyebrows in a single
ecame
line', and she vesatonce that 'dangerous, feline
creature', as Cyril Beaumont called her in her greatest tragie
tragis role % all.


At school Diaghilev was always barin or 'young master'
for both pupils and teachers.
He stood higher than most
of the other boys, -or seemed to. - He had the habit-of f
snapping his fingers when he talked to emphasise a point,
as he did.allihis life. : Teachers were flattered to-be
invited to his house, and often gave him tips about the
next day's tests.
His friends at school were happy to do
his homework for him.
His real education, in singing and
musical compoi.sition (he hopd to be a composer), went on
at the 'big house'.
L When he was seventeen h/.
his father sent him, as any father would at that time,
aquaulane,)
to find out what sex was all about.
He got a venereal
disease instead---and no pleasure.
All his life he was
incapable of the act of manhood, and went in for the usual
witt a womau was
rationalisation that his first experience Jhat been too
dreadful for him to think of ever sleepin
toma
band Ta I re S
The fact may well be that he had more of his
mgstical side
grandfather's Lat E nagure than seemed apparent from
his worldly tastes. He always kept ikons in his hotel
rooms, with candles lit before them, though he never
All thongh uttered a word to his friends that might have been taken
kn as mystical. / The whole biological process seemed to
M most- offend him, and perhaps explains his dislike of a settled
a mnoly wl- home.
It accounted for the 'lofty' element he looked
He hest, for in his affairs, and for the violent tumbles on the
in C hiiy
floor that he needed as a respite from his own
natural
gesture.
squeamishness in sensual matters.
Yet he had the Diaghilev
'lower lip' that was so sensual.
It made the struggle
harder, his attachments the source of burning jealousy
fregueutly
and possessiveness whichynearly toppled his health.ezmh
time He almost fainted when he read the telegram ann-
ouncing Nijinsky's marriage.
Heallowerhinselfa
fhastrif
moment
In the summer of 1890, when he was eighteen, he met
his cousin Dmitri Filosofov, the son of his father's sister
Anna.
It was just after their final examinations at
school, and the meeting brought about the buggest change


change in his life So far.
Dmitri had completed his
gymnastium with Walter Nouvel and Alexandre Benois, both
of them to be Diaghilev's life-long associates. Nouvel
(or 'Valetchka') became his closest friend in the World
of Art circle later on.
He knew every artist and
musician of reputation in the city, yet he himself was
neither a painter nor a composer.
He simply could not
live apart from them, and Diaghilev aay listened care-
fully to everything he said.
He was a restless creature,
wit
and had a cheerful effect on everyone,
He hat the gift,
Which no doubt gave his ideas their weight a
m a for
Diaghmlev was concerned). of feeling no great ambition for
himself.
He was an attaché extraordinary at the Min-
istry of the Court, and seemed to want nothing better,
And His tendency to see the drawbacks in any scheme
(the sound ones as well as the flamboyant ones) was
another attraction for Diaghilev, who like a Renaissance
prince preferred to balance opposing apinions against
each other and then to keep his own counsel.
Not for Benois or Nouvel was he the barin. In fact
he struck them as rather uncouthly provincial.
For
Benois he was 'fresh and healthy' in appearance, with
'rich cheeks and dazzling white teeth', given to laughing
like a child on any pretext. He was a 'good fellow',
a 'lusty provincial', not very intelligent, a little too
down-to-earth, primitive even.
Their little group
ratker dssapproved, and could not see him as one of them.
Yet there was something about him...
Dmitri Filosofov on the other hand was slight and
pale, with fine hands, the image of a quite different
sort of aristocracy. He was fervently interested
in politics, philosophy and literature.
Nouvel favoured
music and belles lettres and history.
As for Benons,
he was one of those naturally cultivated individuals in
whom the history and principles of art seemed to exist
like an intes
part of the nervous system. That he
took the position of master and Diaghilev that of pupil
seemed natural enough: Benois was two years older.
They used to meet at the Fmlosofov villa, Bogdanouskofe,


near Pskov, and sometimes walked together in the fields.
The gardens were especially lovely, with their ponds and
avenues of tall trees and footpaths that led into dusky
hollows.
It was a countryside we all know from Pushkin's
work, mellow yet northern, a landscape that always sur-
prised the eye with its slopes and magnificent lime-trees
and spouting streams and wheatfields that turned a rich
golden colour in the summer months.
Pushkin's poems and
plays were very dear to Diaghilev, though he read little
and lazily.
Pushkin had been exiled to the Caucasus
by Nicolas 1 for his liberal ideas.
In a paradoxical
way he had proved the importance of art by achieving
an extraordinary influence in the liberalism of people
like Anna Filosfov, Dmitri's mother, with her doctrine
of social service.
In the second half of the century
an astonishing new culture came into being of which
Pusgkin was the father---Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky,
Glinka, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Myssorgsky, Tchai-
kowsky: it was an acgievement that was clearly bound
not simply to influence but in time radically change
the western world.
One very hot day---it was at Pargolove---Benois
decided to cross-examine Diaghilev for admittance to
the group. He approved of his worship of Glinka,
Borodin and Mussorgsky but not his taste for 'Italianate'
music, much less his absence of all admiration for Wagner.
A discussion started and they lay down on the grass.
Suddenly the young Diaghilev threw himself on Benois
with a laugh and began pummelling him with his fists.
Benois had never known anything like it -in his
group, after all, the body was barely recognised to
exist!
It hurt too, and he only managed to free himself
by feigning a broken arm.
Diaghilev released him--
with a glint of triumph in his eye which Benois remembered
all his life.
There were at least five quarrels between them
after that.
Sometimes, far from fighting, Diaghylev
would shed tears.
It was clear he took arguments much


more to heart than his friends did.
Really all these dis-
cussions bored him, and he would doze through them quite un-
ashamedly.
At the Filosofov house it was Dmitri's


kiin most.
mother who interestedo targ e
different-worid Trom the present
She was
still a beautiful woman, iberal
with Rer cliildree
men
exiled /for a period
for having given refuge to a famous social revolutionary
called Vera Zassulitch, who had shot at General Trepov,
the head of the St Petersburg police.
Ama
ced
O - Ter abroadwithherchildren TOT
Her husabnd
was twenty years older, adoring and easily swayed.
When
Radbecone
Diaghilev saw him first he tas rather grey and austere.
Alexander E had loved him but detested Anna. He was was Kad
Alexander]s Councillor of State, and almost became his
Minister of Justice.A Unlike the Diaghileys, is Filosfovs
had treated their serfs with brutality, ba under Alexander
he made amends for this, no doubt influenced by Anna too,
by administering HOXAT der
- E eriall the
emancipation of the serfs. The assassination of Alexand-
er and the succession of his son, Alexander 111, whowas
mes
iem, indeed (s ail
a liberal, was a great shock tolthe aristocracy,
which now began to regret its liberal attitudes.
Anna's
husband lost his job, and she modified her zeal. And
now she listened with EE faint incomprehension to the young
men round her, trying to keep up, and bursting into tears
if they outwitted her.
Hers was the Russia of the Sixties,
which had counted politics more important thanart---and
young men from distinguished families had gone round in
peasants' blouses looking as dishevlled as possible.
A Hi
According to Benois, Diaghilev at thasz time was a 'dandy'.
For him Anna's world was historical. And mnm mrid
couldont Demade
ste
Every Wednesday and Sunday the Diaghilev and Filosofov
families dined together, and there were long discussions.
A close attachment grew up between Dmitri of 'Dima', j as
he was called and Diaghilev.
Dima was tall and blond,
reserved, sometimes malicious but always ardent in ideas.
Later in the same year the friends all met as students
of St Petersburg university.
They felt that Diaghilev


was definitely the inferior one.
He could never become
a connoisseur like Benois.
They aE laughed at his top hat
and his monocle and fancy waistcoats.
Benois and the young
Jewish painter) Léon Bakst) thought him a snob, but rather
Resenbag preferred his hauteur to the slovenliness of their other
TVE
Chte
friends.
foretaste ofthe style that wouta
knoun
surrOund
ot that I a
ver ee
later
Rave
Their superiority irritated him and there would be outbursts
varely
of hurt pride. He never accepted their picnic invitations.
At the theatre (they would go to a play or an opera almost
every evening) he would suddenly go off alone. They put
it down to 'provincial immaturity'. He became steadily
less modest as he got to know more important people.
By the third year of their friendship he was walking down
STEV the gangway of the stalls at the Marynsky with his great
asvyauls head thrown back 1
and barely throwing a
glance in their direction, while 'distributing the most
charming smiles and the warmest of greetings to those who
occupied important positions in society or in the civil
service' (this was, how Benois remembered it over half a
taginn Y i
century later). wa was outelli ig people what to think
tul,
instead of enquiring.
And the most haughty people were
beginning to give way to him.
He tad learned much from his friends.
He nad passed
through a 'superman' phase, after reading Nietsche.
was tge strength, the 'temperament' that he admired in
Verdi and Puccini and now, because of his friends,) the
great Wagner. He was literally haunted by music. He
went round the music shops by day, the coneert halls or
the opera house in the evening.
He saw Tchaikowsky's
Slèeping Beauty, which had been presented first in 1889,k
Unlike Benois and Nouvel he rarely went to the ballet.
He Saw Borodin's Prince Igor, Rimsky-Korsakov's Glazunov
and Tchaikowsky's Dame de Pique. I
mtret
- roste
- anl
uney lwasl
entt Dima.


They saw Venice, Rome, Florence, Vienna, Paris
and Berlin.
In Venice Diaghilev saw his first performance
of Lohengrin, and from that time he became perhaps more
fanatically devoted to Wagner than anyone in the group.
ITTC I
LO a
# Landmarks
debermining nis opeme I I
iselp
As for Venicey he never stopped
talking about it.
and Dima were photographed in a gondola.
But it was in
Florence that, like So many, he learned judgement in art,
simply from seeing for the first time what he later called
'maximum creative genius'.
He always claimed that only
in the work of the great artist was there an 'objective
norm', not in any principles.
Thus until he saw Florence
he was necessarily provincial and unformed in his taste.
He visited that city, Baedeker in hand and a young favourite
in tow, again and again throughout his life.
In St Petersburg he stayed at the Filosofov apartment,
devoting as little time to lectures as he could.
Even
his friends' private lectures bored him.
Benois talked gave C
lechure cn
about 'Some Characteristics of the great masters of painting',
dealing with Dûrer, Holbein and Cranach.
Another subject
was'French painting in the nineteenth century, but without
any awareness of the impressionists.
N.V.Skalon read a
paper on 'The belief in future life among various peoples',
ity
fhach advancea a materialist doctrine.
G.F.Kalin gave a
Waller
witty talk called 'Tugeniev and his time', and/Nouvel spoke
on the history of opera, illustrating his lecture with sung
excerpts (he had a fine baritone voice).
'Dima' talked
about Alexandern but, according to Benois, got no further
than 1806.
Hardly any of it interested Diaghilev, even
the painting. But he had a curious way of absorbing know-
ledge Lazilyand without much apparent mental effort.
Only long afterwards would people notice that he had Hz digatal
sorbed an idea, to which he had originally responded with
a flat mask of indifference. More than the lectures he
preferred their informal evenings, when, together with
Nouvel ('Valetchka') he would plyze pieces for four hands
or sing.


After his first year he took anapartment of his own
in Galernaya Street and installed his nurse Dunia, a large,
red-haired woman whose chief function it was to reign over
Sometue
the samovar in the dining room where(there were anyt + i H etp
to forty guests at a timel She did it lovingly. ant
cane
She hadeome into the Diaghilev family as part of
his mother's dowry, having nursed her and other members of
the Yevreinov family.
Diaghilev was so attached to het
that if he left the apartment abruptly, without saying good-
YoRr Re ummed feed enh apley ferte
bye, or was in the least way curt,
arit E day. She was against the emancipation of the
serfs,. and warned everyone that it would bring great
trouble on Holy Russia.
She had looked after his two
half-brothers, Yuri and Valetnine. And now she stayed
with him for twenty-one years, until 1912, when he left
Russia for good.
His friends adored her, and she is to
be seen in the background of Bakst's portmait of Diaghilev,
painted in his second apartment at 45 Liteiny Prospect.
He began to give lavish dinners, with plenty of wine
(though he was never a great drinker himself), and Has seemed
far happier at the head of te table dreaming UproTects
for the - uture amon
hem
magazine
than listening to his friends read papers.
He had a
lover at this time, a young and handsome writer. Both
barudoxically
ETT
attacked 'Annatural love', Hac
no: one suspected that they were practising it.
He still spent his summers at Bogdanovskoie.
Anna
Filosofova was still deeply perplexed by them all, with
their 'small talk' as she called it, about art and theatre
and music, Whenther
I T
Suct
the commmitys
'I remember
how passionatel3) we used to argue about how best we could
day,
serve people;' she said.
'Where is that feeling now,
and that activity, that yearning to help the weak? Why,
one's head used to swim sometimes with it all, everyone
was so alive, so eager!
But the young men of today are
Times Rad certau le,
prematurely
THE answe IC
there
changad


en rener
now
the questiony was more whether the coming revolution (of
which Diaghilev and E # IE Dima were perfectly conscious)
would destroy CVET
the class they all belonged
Yet
to.' Zeing a Diaghilev, Anna found herself accepting the
newideas more. easily.then she had thought possible,
though she did call them 'decadent'.
'The Russian decadent
movement', she said, 'was born here, in our Bogdanovskoie,
because the pioneers were my son Dmitri and my nephew
S.P.Diaghilev.
Here it was that The Eorld of Art was
conceived. To me, a woman of the Sixties, the whole
thing seemed So mad that it was all I could do to restrain
my indignation.
They merely laughed at me...
Neverthe-
less, when the edge had worn off my initial antagonism,
I began to take a certain interest in their ideas, and
frankly, to sympathise with much in them. The tense,
false atmosphere began to clear, a number of things were
bundled away, till at last one great idea remained out-
standing, namely, the seeking and creation of beauty.
Even if Sergei had not founded The World of Art, this
would havebeen a sufficient claim to fame'.
In 1892 he moved to his second apartment, a
much larger one, with his friend Antreiev and also his
two half-brothers Yuri and Valentine, who were pupils in
the Alexandrovsky cadet corps. St Petersburg, then the
capital of Russia, was a pleasant city with its wide
streets and many rivers, the chief among them the Nevsky.
Diaghilev
began taking lessons with Cotogni, the baritone at the
Italian opera. He heard de Reszkes sing, and Melba, and
Litvinne. He went on teasing his nynya, Dunia, and
shocking her with some remark that sounded revolutionary.,
Zoukor,
S3 had a valet de chambre, Vassilz > who louked Pher
30s
enly
L him from dawn to dusk, leaving to Dunial the sacred duty
samovar
of the tea and its necessary accompaniment in Russia, jam.
2.ejliles
In 1893 1Sl came of age and inherited 60,000 rubles from


his mother, which coincided well with the fact that he
now had a decided judgement in art, as it meant he could
buy pictures and encourage artists. wTt
adrindorlrs his friends did not mock him.
His uncouthness
now
had disappeared, and he was/inseparable from a very tall
top hat.
He had visiting cards printed with 'Serge de
Diaghilev' on them.
His friendship with Benois deepened
and he started to attend all the 'society' meetings.
gave recitals at home, though he was beginning to lose
anol
confitence in his own powers as a composer. He took two mate
apain
trips abroad, -
fthrem with Dima.
Another
durin
grandson of Pavel Dmitri Diaghilev met them,
the Nice
Sudolenly
carnival, or rather they/exploded on him in masks, hustl-
koer
ing and pushing him, unti they tore their masks off,
screaming with laughter.
who had been seriously
weutta
ill that winter, Was convalescing at the Canteau Balrose,
which belonged to a friend of his brother's. As for
tnuglt
Diaghilev, he had A
ging pictures in Berlin and
tr Munich. He had met Lenbach, and acquired a
or 1 Incle
Pavet
Libermann.
To the
hustled
cousin
war
frtend,
young Toribut-fubsitovitcon,)e
Seriozha seemed greatly proud of his finds.
From Lenbach
slergfon
latir
he tat bought a study of Bismarck in the uniform of the
- He Ressin
Cuirassiers.
Koribut-Kubiovitch and Diaghilev continued
Bullet,
their journey together; into Italy, where Serge bought
fifteenth- and sixteenth-century furn
a aence
including 'low Savonarola stools, a magnificent long table
and several chairs'.
In Naples and Rome they found
bronze vases and statuettes.
Phese
aa a a
reacier
OUDs Apparent
des T Toved III the Revolute
5 F
confided to Benois after
this trip that he still made frightful mistakes of.judge-
previous
logelts
ment in art, and they decided to throw away
his 'ugly
furnitnre', s apart oft
But
He had atreaty begun to feel that his future lay in western
Europe. His next trip, in 1895, was alone.
This time


he gave way to what most of his friends called his
R 2
snobberygt what was in fact a passis
est to
make contact with great minds.
He met Zola, Gounod,
Massenet, Saint-Saêns, Puvis de Chavannes, Menzel and---
perhaps most important of all for him, since his group
associated the name with Wagner---A. Bocklin.
He now
had a real collection of works, which he coaxed out of artisls
at âairly low prices. He had stayed
rode
in the best hotels and tren everywhere in a closed
carriage.
He was now dressed in the most elegant clothes,
and the eyeglass he did not need wasas inseparable from him
as his top hat.
He had a new, fashionable perfume.
He was now the equal of anyone in St Petersburg, and behaved
E that way, especially in the presence of his closest
He lecane l friends, who found his stories of the trip incoherent and loo
famihis lavishly peppered with famous names. h He was now taking
sijar, in ke lessons with Rimsky-Korsakob.
His collection provoked
srleteslay indignation and mockery among his relatives, harmless as it
diuwug m ws was. Yet Heither he nor his friends seemed aware at this time
A . d
of the Impressionists, whose work was going relatively
cheap.
Canvases by Cezanne, Sisley, Picasso, Degas,
flutter an
Renoir could be acquired without difficulty.
As for
- celibrs
Vuillard, Bonnard, Roussel, their work was going for a song.
Diaghilev had also met Verdi, whose latest opera Otello
he admired So much. He had been to Bayreuth.
Benois'
friend Hans von Bartels had shown him round Munich. And
on his return to Russia he had met Tolstoy at Yasnaga
Poliana, though there is no record of what happened betweeh
them, which seems to show that there was no undue sympathy.
From that time, Benois once wrote, 'Seriozha was on an
equal footing with us all, and his 'receptions', in a certain
degree, began to rival
own'. But Diaghilev's understand-
porixalny
Could
ing was even thenjmuch greater than this implies. He/already
sad
bleto name the author and subject of
the most ohscure Russian paintings.
During 1895 he wrote
two articles for The News.
He had begun to dream of sett-
ing up a museum of art, based on his own collection, and
from Antwerp, on his last tripyhe had written to Benois,


'I shall put myself in your hands, and solemnly declare
you curator of the Diaghilev museum. I mean this serious-
ly: who knows, a few years hence we may really have some-
thing worthwhile... It now seems clear to me that...with
three or four thousand rubles a year it would be possible
to create something quite decent'.
He wanted 'to peel
Russian art of its trimmings, give it a thorough clean-up,
and serve it up to the West in all its glory'.
So the
idea of presenting Russia in Paris, in some form or another,
had begun to grip his mind before he left university.
Incorporated in this idea was the desire to make contact
with what he felt to be, especially in painting, the great-
er culture of the west.
If, finally, he adopted ballet
Russius de
cmlol Aot te
as his staple export it was perhaps because
L lancip L
unapppoachan anywhere else in the world, and in France
had fallen into decadence.
Compared with all this, the study of law seemed out-
rageously important.
But a degree was regarded in St,
Petersburg as essential for any cnt AE public career, and
he crammed his way through 1896, that is six years after
uninenils
ierlta
hisnentrance. He got his degree.
He and/Nouvel were
at Tchaikowsky's last concert, when he condicted his own
Bathétique and played the piano in Mozart's Danses d'Ido-
ménée. A few days later the composer died of cholera,
at the age of only difty-three, and Diaghilev was the
first to arrive at his house with a wreath.
Alexander
111 ordered the funeral to be at the expense of the state,
and great crowds followed the coffin from the cathedral
of the Virgin of Kazan.
He still nursed the idea of becoming a composer.
Nouvel had gone along to Rimsky-Korsakov and asked him
for some sort of testimony as to his own musical abilities,
and rather midly the composer had encouraged him to go on
Heyattoured
with his studies.
Diaghilev + Le ledd to do the same.
But the reception he got was by no means mild.
Rimsky-
all
Korsakov told him roughly to give up the thought of making
music his career.
It is said that Diaghilev left his
room slamming the door and shouting, 'The future will
prove which of us two is considered the greater in history!'


TE to the discomfort of his friends hewent on composing
and, a little worse, singing.
He decided to perform his
duo for soprano and baritone to the words of Pushkin's
Boris Godunov. He sang Dmitri and his famous aunt Panaev Sang
Marina.
His 'society' thought it awful, and from this
time, according to Benois, Diaghilev 'decided not to strain
our ears with his singing'.
His later relations with
Rimsky-Korsakov, whose work he produced in Paris, were
pleasant, and some say he regretted his remark all his
life. He certainly never composed again. He turned
more completely tol prisshow, and his friendship with Benois
and Bakst became something Eke an ardent collaboration.
Bakst was a relative newcomer to the group, and the only
srletersling
Jew. He lived near the /market, in the narrow and bust-
ling Sadovia Street, a rebel from the academy (this was
a time when anti-semitiism was rather fashionable in
Russia).
But We was an excellent portraitist and might
have been content to go on painting St Petersburg's love-
liest women had it not been for Benois' scathing reminders
of his wasted powers.
As it turned out, Diaghilev's
ambition to influence the West was realised more complete-
ly in Bakst than anyone else. Paris talked of him quite
as much as Nijinsky.
No one had seen décors and costumes
like H it.
Benois was impressed by the polemical articles Dia-
ghilev had wet h eaning à to
to write.
And he introduced him
to his first backer, Princess Tenischeva, who had been
living in St Petersburg since 1890.
She was then a
handsome woman in her thirties, with a great interest in
villa cl-
TALASHKINO art exhibtians.
She had plenty of money, with a/house Talashkins
in Paris (she financed Alexandre Benois' trips there,
anda
(with a monthly income) as her picture-buying agent). and
By this time Diaghilev had been visilial
to Moscgu, where the prevailing taste was less European
and yet, more interested in the French contemporaries,
caviere magnala
amd had met Sava Mamontov, a busine S man who had already
Mamontor
backed opera productions. Here established Chaliapine, witk
Rimsky-Korsakov's Ivan the Terrible (which Diaghilev Ae
later took to Paris). Thel Mamont avts décors/were the work commikined


of the Moscow artist M.A.Vroubel, whom Diaghilev also
befriended.
He began visiting art exhibitions as greed-
ily as he had formerly gone to concerts and operas.
That year he wrote to his stepmother, 'I am first a great
charlatan, though with brio; secondly, a great charmant;
thirdly, I have any amount of cheek; fourhhly I am a
man with a great quantity of logic, but with very few
principles; fifthly, I think I have no real gifts.
All the same, I think I have just found my true vocation---
being a Maecenas.
I have all that is necessary save the
money---mais ça viendra.'
At the age of twenty-five, in 1897, he put on his
first exhibition at the Stieglitz Museum, with the help
of the princess.
It was no revolution in itself.
The
exhibits were British and German watercolours (Lavery,
Guthrie, Brangwyn, Liebermann, Bartels, Austen-Brown,
Paterson), and Benois called it a manifestation élégante raltar
than a manifesto.af
But this was precisely
its point. The fact that it was a social occasion, and
the watercolours really said very little, was in itself lime
at Has
an attack on the famous movement that dominated Russia,
the SU
E d ambulant' or 'peripetetic' school of
(so called
Yhith
purpose-pictures e were remarkably similar, largo A what lalar
peredvishnick became Soviet art, with peasants/and workers f ETrITE as
estvo -fo
the heroes. That same year Diaghilev had written in
3 kavellug an article, 'It is about time we stopped admiring these
Sxh hililions inartistic canvases, with policemen, rural guards,
students in red shirts, and young women with cropped
By contrast he found the 'boys of Glasgow', as
they were called, captiavting with their hazy richness of
texture.
The lack of real content seemed not to matter.
The exhibition was a great success, and all St Petersburg
argued for or against it.
Mamontov and his artists, chief among them Korovin
and Serov, arrived from Moscow to confer with Diaghilev
about a second exhibition devoted to the Scandinavian
painters, and he orgagised this for the Society for the
PERED VIZHNICHESTVO


Encouragement of Fine Arts.
Benois was now in Paris, living on the princess's
allowance of one hundred roubles a month, with 10,000
roubles available for buying pictures wherever he found
them. His father poovided another hundred roubles a
month, so that Benois could devote himself to studies
benefit
uficl
that would later/ the World of Art magazine that Dima and
Diaghilev were hatching up at Princess Tenischeva's
studio, where they met frequently.
Bhe A
her
sup H
Diaghilev was to be editor in chief, she
and Mamontov the publishers.
The magazine lasted from
1899 until 1905, and had an extraorinary influence among
the intelligentsia while never achieving a circulation
of more than four thousand.
Alfred Nurok became one
of the chief contributors, and fittea thel 'decadent'bill
perfectly with his Mephistophelian appearance and int-
erest in the duc de Sade.
He introduced the circle tn
Rodbeey
the work of Aubrey Beardsley, and it was through him that
haoi
11 L Diaghilev Had met Oscar Wilde in Dieppe, together
with Beardsley and Condet, in 1897.
Dima took charge of the philosophical side of
Mir Isskustva, as the magazine was called in Russian,
while Diaghilev managed the artistic.
Its whole effort
was towards converting Russia HCE mre to look west.
Peter the Great had encouraged western artists to settle
in Russia, and had sent Russian artists to France and
Italy.
Since his time the process had been steadily
precisely
reversed, and the 'ambulant' movement was repbers the
climax of this reversal in its emphasis on the struggle
for liberty and its definition of the artist as a 'leader'
A HS Struegte honour-bound to show life in a naturalist-
ic way, without the smallest artificialis or 'art for
all
art's sake', under which heading was included Ey interest
in foreign art.
The World of Art was, in comparison,
he world of the leisured.
Art was to be 'free'.
This might have appealed to other leisured people.
It did not.
Both the public and the press were perplexed
by what they could only dimly understand as decadent'


arguments.
Visitors EE laughed at Diaghilev's exhibition
of Russian and Finnish painters.
An army general came
along simply to stand before each picture and roar with
laughter. Diaghilev began to feel the sting. of public
ut Rsafiestions
contempt. His use of hothouse plants, made people think
him altogether too 'smart'.
The entire imperial family
while
had turned up at the opening too, with anwhole orchestra
Pieghuile
playtd in the gallery, which madé
seem retrograde
in the eys of the city's intelligent, or rather the 'intell-
igentsia', those sons and daughters of business-men and
engineers and army officers who really laid the ground frasi
or the later bolshevik revolutions.
Now that he was actually working among them, Diaghilev
began to strike his friends as a very remarkable man indeed.
He had a flair for creating a working atmpsphete that infect-
ed everyone.
He made it all seem 'a fantastic adventure'.
Above all, he was a natural publicity man. He knew how
to influence the rich and the important with a few soft
words.
He involved them in the adventure too.
Biaghi Ho apartment in Liteiny Prospect was an
impressive place for the headquarters of a magazine, its
walls covered with pictures, its Italian furntiure glowing
with a mellow richness in i dim corners. A good copy
of Donatello's painted bust of Nicolo Uzzano stood on a
small Renaissance cabinet.
The dining room, where the
trarorue
committee meetings were held, had superb Taeobenn chairs.
tohi
Business callers were received in the study,
Gegamh
OrK IL
At the end of the dark
passage there were two rooms overlooking a courtyard--
the technical departement, where Bakst looked after the
'tahnkless' graphic work, and Diaghilev's bedroom.
Thet graphic work consisted largely of retouching photo-
graphs of paintings, which were then sent to Germany for
the blocks to be made, since this art---like printing-
had declined in Russia since the days of Peter the Great.
Bakst also drew
magoyine
vignettes, and thetitles and elegant
signatures.
Everyone was paid, though not highly
(except
perhaps Dima and Diaghulev, whose income from the project


was a secret). There were boisterous moments, not always
pleasant in their outcome.
Once the two editors seized
hold of Bakst and dragged him to the front door, then threw
him outside on to the landing, pitching his overcoat and
galoshes after him.
They had Jame reason.
Bakst's
brother, Isaika Rosenberg, contributed to a tabloid of the
time called Petersbugrskaia Gazeta.
When Prince Wolkonsky,
who was sympathetic to the World of Art circle, became
director of the Imperial Theatres in 1899, some gossip
about his policies reached Bakst through Diaghilev and
Dima. Now his familial weakness was that he could not
withhold anything he knew from his brother.
There were
a few leaks, and the two editors scolded him. When the
threw kim uc.
leaks persisted they tOn
It happened late one
evening, and perhaps there was more to the incident than
we know,tor Er
artist Kostia Somov withdrew from the
Fhe
m ca ccs
circle)
Diaghilev was almost in tears about Somov's
S U
Josn
metot Saws
letter of
awal , and Benois went Engirh to Somov
at Nouvel's apartment to reason with him. He was adamant.
Even Benois was puzzled.
Bakst himself was back in the
Diaghilev apartment inside a week. Somov was a quiet and
considerate man, TOT
sire
hussir descended from Tartar princes and registered in
the Sixth Velvet Book. Benois managed Sarrangeg s
a meeting between Rim - ard
Somov
Diaghilev andSomet but
EP left almost at once,
hardly touching his hand.
And he never returned.
The daily meetings lasted from four in the afternoon
until seven.
Diaghilev's habit was to consult with the
others, listen closely to their advice, then make up his


own mind and from that point disregard all further dis-
cussion.
On January 18 1899 his most ambitious internat-
ional exhibition opened at the Stieglitz Museum with the
kind of fanfare he loved.
Rusian artists---Bakst,
Benois, Paul Vasnetzov, Vrubel, Levitan, Repin, Serov,
Botkin, Golovin---figured among Degas, Besnard, Whistler,
Branwyn, Bleint, Liebermann, Bartels, Lembach,
Conder,
Carrière, with two Americans, Alexander and Tiffany,
one Swiss, B8cklin, and Boldini from Italy.
The emperor
and other members of the royal family were there.
The
Grand Duke Vladimir, to become an important sponsor of
a a 1
Diaghilev for his first Paris productions, and at that
time president of the Academy of Fine Arts, returned to
the exhibition several times.
Meanwhile the press was accusing The World of Art of
'corrupting youth, breeding ugliness, morbidity, and
depraved tastes'.
Diaghilev's homosexuality was now
Bel at crurt
known.
Among his friends it was a joke, a
mn d
about tomen
SHUSt
ft ti
In 1900 he was busy with his monograph on the eighteenth-
kai
century Levitsky. The attention he was creating put him in
a buoyant mood. The more anger he aroused, the harder
he worked.
Benois and Nouvel shared his optimism. Dima
was not SO sure.
The artist Répine, at first a supporter,
came out against Diaghilev and started something of a
press campaing against him. The second number of The
World of Art featured Levitsky's portraits of the pupils
of the Smolny institute, and a further number was dedicated
to fushkin, on his centenary.
The exhibitions continued,
one of them in the vast Académie des Beaux Arts, where
Diaghilev cleverly constructed a room inside the hall to
hide the bad copies of old masters on the walls.
That
year he went to the Paris Exhibition and reaped some of
oun
the benefit of hisy work vicariously in the award of a medal
of honour to Serov, and gold medals to Korovin and Maliutine.
Vroubel also got a prize for applied art. Each one of
the honoured artists was from his 'stable'.


There were several more exhibitions in the next
three years. They were of great importance to the
World of Art in that they focussed attention on its
artists and attracted new ones, though the press maint-
ained a fiercely hostile attitude---quite distinct from
that of the Court.
The first exhibition opened on January
28 1900 at thestieglitz again, this time devoted to
slone.
World of Art painters anp
Another,
organised by Diaghil-
ev, Benois and Serov, opened on Janvary 5 1901 at the
Academy of Arts, after much difficult negotiation, and
consisted of three categories of artists---the 'permanent
members' of the World of Art circle (who had the right
to send in what paintings they liked, guest artists'
(whose work was choser, and 'Invited artists'.
Members
of the Academy threatened to set fire to it. The news-
papers mocked.
The new artists in the exhibition were
Vinegradov, Pasternak, Rilov and Riabushkin.
The idea
was to make the shows a permanent feature of St Petersburg
life.
Another opened on March 9 1902 at the Arcade
gallery, with the participation of a Moscow group called
'The 36', and this was perhaps the most succesfful to
date.
But the following year the Moscow group decided
against exhibiting with Diaghilev indthis was (the chief
reason why the exhibitions stopped after 1903). ThatA Iterd
sshililior
was held at the Society for the Protection of Art
+ L according to Benois was 'unsatisfactory both as to
the pictures exhibited and the general effect'.
The
Cuhice meaut Diaghilew
selection committee/ was under criticism. Most of the
World of Art painters assembled in St Petersburg to
discuss the matter, and the 'Muscovites' came in force.
Diaghilev opened the meeting.
He talked about the
'grievances' which were being voiced against the
and
selection committee, L He now felt it his 'duty' to
ask if the exhibitions should not le held 'on a new
basis', especially as some of the Moscow painters had
criticised him personally. To everyone's surprise
several of the St Petersburg artists (Braz and Bilibin,
for example) sided with the 'Muscovites', and it was


(ano olvious
decided to elect a larger seldetion committee with, a
blow at Digghilev) less 'dictatorial' powers. The
biggest surprise of all, however, was Benois' sudden
declaration that he too wanted a 'new society'.
Diaghilev and Filosofov looked at each other.
Accord-
ing to one of the artists present (Igor Grabar) Diaghil-
ev seemed very disturbed, while Dima looked calm, with a
sarcastic smile hovering on his lips.
'Everyone got
up, and Filosofov, in a voice audible to everyone,
said, "Thank God, this is the end!"'
The World of Art now began to falter, as small and
expensive magazines will.
Mamontov was finding it diff-
icult to keep up his subsidy, as his business affairs were'
in a bad state, during that period of what the Marxists
call/the 'last gasp of Russian capitalism' before the
Revolution.
The Princess also withdrew her money, but
Sex
more probably because of the/stigma against Diaghilev.
Also, with a couple of young tyrants running the magazine,
she saw little role for herself except that of what modern
show business calls 'moneybags'.
The press mocked her.
There was a cartoon of her as a COW being miled by
Diaghilev and his staff. For an attractive young woman
who entertained the most brilliant society in Paris and
St Petersburg it was an expensive way of losing face.


The previous summer, in 1899, Benois had returned
from his first long stay in Paris and his first visit to
London.
Diaghilev and Dima came out to his_villa at
Chernaia Rechka with the news thatthe director ofthe
Imperial Theatres, I.K.Vsevolozhsky, had retired and the
young Prince Serge Wolkonsky fattk his place.
The Prince
had turned to the World of Art group for help.
He had
new_ideas.: Dima was to be on the committee responsible
- for the repertoire of the Alexandrinsky Theatre, where
drama only was performed.
Diaghilev was to:'be Chinovnik
Osobykh Porucheniy or 'Civil Servant with Special Duties'.
He felt he had arrived.
Or So it seemed.from the arrogant
way he started behaving towards his friends.
Twice the
= Serov and Benois had to put him in his place.
Wolkonsky,' unlike his predesessor, took an' active
interest in the ballet, and, had a thorough -musical education.
That yéar Fjamarakarsavifa,, then' a pupil 'at the ballet school,
saw him-for the first time-as he passed through.one of the
practice studios. -She and another pupil were practising
on the piano. . He walked in,, tall-and slim and somehow
impetuous-1ooking, his head bent to one side. They curt-"
seyed to him and he made a bow. Then he came over to the
fars
piano, having recognised the gound fome Cimaroas. He tapped
the piano with his finger
told them that when, they had
were nger.gnd at lhiss Com fnm a. direda.
learned it they Jighouid play it faster. He was only thirty-
nine at that time and seemed to promise some vigorous reforms.
Current ballet' positively irritated him.
There were
ballerinas but no real ballets, the miming was of an appall-
ing quality, dancers grinned their way through everything,
including the Tannhauser ballet, on their points.
This
ballet was staged by the great Petipa.
According to Kar-
savina's father, a dancer at the imperial theatre and a
teacher, Petipa had been a much finer producer than trad
been A dancer, and his acting had often been 'ridiculous',
was all 'false melodrama and pathos'.
Little wonder,
then, that Wolkonsky Round in the Korld of Art group a
refreshing stamina, which if applied to ballet might produce
otte /ime
some very. interesting results. The audiences, were as


much to blame as anyone.
They accepted steps that were
out of time to the music, ane
H meaning, as they
accepted the affectations of the soloists.
Wolkonsky
once described it all to Arnold Haskell as TeVIA boon
'illogical, absurd, unnecessary', all the more so in
comparison with what the Italian dancer Virginia Zucchi
achieved when she visited St Petersburg. She actually
the triloness e fallet-stonel
ial,
moved her audiences, despite unfarourabl ff
eies. L EA
eternining the future Diaghiler
She gave Diaghilev's generation,
with her peculiarly Italian fusion of humanity in full
witt 2XgM
bloom ane - e tAf resolved form, a view of dancing as
serious art, not simply a divertissement-type entertain-
ment alleviated by grace on one side and tours de force
on the other.
It was not a matter of wanting to depart
from classicism so much as to bring it back to life.
Diaghilev once said to Massine, 'Art must have perpetual
youth; it must change and renew itself', but, on the
other hand, 'Classicism is the university of the modern
choreographer.
The dancer and ballet-master of today
must matriculate in it, just as Picasso must know his
anatomy and Stravinsky his scales'.
It was after
Zucchi's visit that he began to see the possibilities
of the ballet as a mans of fusing all his various inter-
ests---music, the drama, painting.
Paradoxically the Italians had done much to produce
the 'acrobatic' style of dancing in St Petersburg, which
by earlier tradition prided itself, unlike the ruder
Moscow school, on grace and stylew, A series of Italian
guest-dancers in the Eighties and Nineties was responsible
for this. It was unashamed virtuosity.
Pierina Legnani
Kad dazzled everyone with her thirty-two fouettés (the
dancer spins round, rising and falling, on one point),
in a breathlessly exciting tour de force.
It led to
the appointment of 'maestro' Enrico Cecchetti to the
Marynsky school in 1898.
A special Italian' class under
him was to accompany the traditional 'French' classes.
The 'Ifalian' style had evolved out of the work of the


eighteenth-century ballet-master Carlo Blasis, and laid
great emphasis on rigorous practuce. Cecchetti had already
made an international reputation as premier danseur in the
Eighties, especially in Luigi Manzotti's ballets Amor and
Excelsior.
He had been a pupil of Giovanni Lepri, who
in turn had studied under Blasis.
Petipa, ballet-master
at the Marynski, did not resist this Italian 'invasion' but,
with his natural balance and imagination, incorporated it
into the 'St Petersburg' style.
Christian Johannson, who
taught the 'class of perfection' at the imperial school,
was dead against it. He saw acrobatics and nothing more.
He had been a pupil of the Danish ballet-master Auguste
Bournonville, whose father Antoine had trained underthe
great French teachers Jean Georges Noverre and Auguste
Vestris.
They, together with Maximilien Gardel, were the
fathers of classical ballet.
And Petipa and Johannson
were the guardians of their tradition in Russia.
It was Blasis, ballet-master at La Scala, Milan,
in the early nineteenth century, who established the
barre and centre practice, and outlined detailed theories
on the way the arms bhould be held.
This was the basis
of the Cecchetti method.
Above all, Blasis' doctrine
foreshadowed many of Diaghilev's ideas on the perfect
fusion of masic with the steps, and both with the story and
the décor.
It was why Cecchetti became the teacher of
the Diaghilev ballet. He laid great emphasis on the
movements of the upper part of the body, especially the
port de bras, and the coordination of arms and head to
develop épaulement or pcrfect carriage in the shoulders.
His classes began at nine o'clock in the morning with
allegro movements which the maestro altered each day,
for lossening up and strengthening.
Work at the barre
was followed by centre practice.
Each day different
steps were practiced-- --assemblés on Mondays, ballonnés
and sauts de basque en tournant, temps de cuisse and
bourrés of all kinds on Tuesdays, ronds de jambe on
Wednesdays, grands jetés of all kinds on Thursdays,
batterie and cabrioles on Fridays, and coupés on Satur-


days.
He presided. over the class with/his
opper
stick, and tapped a dancer's feet with it lightly but
firmly if a step was wrong.
His eye was unerring.
He worked his dancers until the sweat poured out of them,
but allowed them to kiss him each morning at the beginning
of class. IA
Before Blasis, the basis of
dance-teaching had been intuitive rather than systematic.
It was he who La based it on the laws of equilibrium
and arrived at a precise formula in which the different
parts of the body were seen as parts of a geometric design,
of curves and right angles.
The dancer lined himself up
with the four corners of the studio, and the middle of each
wall. It was a long and trying discipline for a child,
and lasted seven or eight years.
Karsavina's first
teacher kept her at the barre for two months until her
feet turned out and she was ready for exercises in the
centre.
That was the orthodox way in Russia.
Her
father, Platon Karsavin, always told her that sweat must
trickle down the face in practice.
He forbade drinking
during practice as it 'ruined respiration'. A dancer
kes
could not sit down immediately after HE exertions but
had to walk up and down like a horse, so as not to weaken
the knees.
When a child was offered as a potential pupil
at the ballet school there was always a doctor's examinat-
ion to see if there were any deviations of the spine.
The heels had to be held together for the knees to be
looked at. You had to sing before the judges in order
to prove an ear for music.
And if you were accepted
you sweated every day for many years---until your retirement.
There were also notation lessons, which pupils at the Suletoslug'
Imperial School called abracadabra and cabalistics',
a system of describing dances on paper which had been
devised by Stepanov.
In the Nineties the female dancer
still wore the rather cumbersome costumes of the tradit-
ional ballet, which tended to hamper movements---tight
corsets, stiff boned bodices and packets of tarlatan which
came well below the knee.


There were 180 dancers at the imperial ballet company
of St Petersburg, most of them women, in three ranks--
the first solo dancers and ballerinas, the second solo
dancers and ballerinas and the coryphées, then the corps
de ballet. In the last years of the nineteenth century it
was customary for a fine dancer to go down to. Milan to
submit herself to even less merciful rigours than those
under Cecchetti, Signora Beretta taught at La Scala,
and was shaped like a pyramid, very tiny, with a small
head and (this was how Karsavina saw her) 'a meagre blob
of hair on top'.
She had once been a great star at La
which fact
Scala,k She banged her stick on the floor, and allowed
leemel puile
- busike l not a second of rest in barre-practice. Karsavins was
Sha
present when g er Be eretta screamed at her own neice,
who had burst into tears because of the difficulty of
certain steps, Piangi, piangi, paledetta! ('cry, cry,
wretched creature!'). The Italian school made you or
broke you.
Trefilova, Pavlova and Karsavina all showed
astonishing progress after they had been to her.
Diaghilev's appointment meant.that he was to be a
kind of junior assistant to the Prince.
He was now
twenty-seven years old, and the most fashionable member
of his circle.
The great Mathilde Kschesinskaya, one
of the most influential of the star dancers at the
al ie
Marynsky adored him, and everyone, else in the company
Tgasi Auslress, knew that she did.
According to Serge Lifar, she had
a little ryhme which went, 'I've just discovered Chin-
chilla' (Diaghilev's nickname, now that the white streak
of hair over his right temple was So pronounced) 'in
his box, and I'm' horribly afraid I may make a wrong step
in my dâncing!'
She would come to the footlights and
bow to him.
Tsar Nicolas 11, an enthusiastic theatre-
goer, still worshipped. her.
She was alse close to the
Grand Duke Vladimir, second of Alexander 11's five sons
and uncle of the present Tsar, with fourth place in the
imperial hierarchy.
He was also the father of Grand
Duke Andé who was to become Kshesinskaya's husband.


It seemed that Diaghilev was established in his future
path.
Bakst was given a French play to design, Benois
a Tanaev opera, whule Somov was to design the Imperial
Theatre programmes. For Diaghilev, among other things,
there was the editorship of the Annual of the Imperial


Theatres.
It seemed the right thing for the aditor of
The World of Art. A lot of people, especially the editor
he replaced, Moltchanov, hoped that this 'decadent' would
overstretch himself on the first number, and bring Wolkonsky's
little régime crashing down.
It did not happen that way--
not at once.
The first number of the Annual under Diagh-
ilev's editorship was a triumph of good taste which the
Tsar fully approved.
It made its predecessors look
shabby, with its bright illustrations and articles on the
eighteenth-century designer Gonzago and the architecture
of St Petersburg's Alexandrinsky theatre.
From the beginning the Prince had a rather difficult
time. The press was against him. When, with the empress's
approval, he lengthened the ballet skirt, there were caricat-
ures showing the coryphées with sacks up to their necks.
St Petersburg loved its dancers, after all, much more than Haydid
those who administered them, and it was possible for a
0 prima ballerina to wield more influence at court than the:
n ke mb
director himself.
The Prince began to earn the reputation
of being 'against' ballet.
His appointment of Diaghilev
was resented largely because (as Wolkonsky knew) Diaghilev
gave himself s airs.
There were press attacks on Diaghulev,
aim and---according to the Prince---levery kind of dis-
gusting innuendo', meaning no doubt references to his homo-
sexuality. The first Annual was a triumph of book prod-
uction in aicountry: where- that craft had faded monstrously
in the previous century, But that did not.stay.the criticism.
First of all.it.cost 30,000"'roubles, which was 10,000 in
excess of the usual sum. It also lookéd too much like
another. edition of the Morld of Art.
did the
(Bakst
cover,, Benois We
#oe article on the
Alexandrinsky theatre.
There was an outcry.
The Annual
was also too bulky, the bureaucrats said, and its format
had been altered, with the result that postal regulations
would be infringed! Diaghilev was kept waiting when he
went to see high officials. - He fumed with indignation,
kiissl
mostly to Wolkondky.
And when Wolkonsky wasyt too busy to
Diaghules
see him ejlet tofly at him as well. Early he required
the full attention of everyone round him---as and when he


needed it, not a moment before or after.
Not did St Petersburg want its ballet interfered
lcun
with. At that time Kshesinskayalswas asTbrilliant to
audacity', in Karsavina's words. The beautiful Maria
Petipa was dancing, and Egorova.
Siedova was 'covering
the stage in a few leaps'.
The corps de ballet was
'famous for accuracy and discipline'. That year, 1900,
there were fifty-five ballet performances at the Marynsky Hhealre
(Wednesdays and Sundays, the latter being the more fashion-
able), and twenty-six different ballets.
Four new works
were performed.
Pierina Legnani gave a benefit performance.
Almost all the repertoire was astoternyoy ET
by -
Lets Marius
Petipa. Pavbova 11 or Anna Pavlova was beginning to make
rina a great name. There were also Trefilova and Preobrajenska.
Michel
In Moscow)Gheltzer was the star. AFokine was beginning to
emerge, after his debut in 1898 as the coming star
of the Marynsky, with his remarkable leap and 'virile
execution' and that Aiy Byronic head that made Karsavina,
among other pupils at the imperial school, fall in love
with him. In her first year she had seen another
dancer pass out of school into a star-career---that
great 'Puck' of ballet, impish and tiny and intellig-
ent, altogether out of the ordinary, Olga Preobrajinskaya.
The brothers Nitolas
and Sergei Legat
up as
dancers. What
iwere/coming
more could anyone want? Who were these also
people who wanted to upset everything with a few vague
'decadent' notions?
The two friends planned a new production of Delibes'
Sylvia. Benois would design the first act, Korovine the
second and a nephew of Benois' called Eugene Lanceray the
third. One costume was to be designed by Serov, the
eest by Bakst.
The principal dancers were to be Preobra-
jenskaya and the Legat brothers.
The Prince's production
Le Cpera
of/Sadkho by Rimsky-Korsakov had, with Diaghilev's
help,
been a success.
The designer had been Apollinaire Vas-
netzov. It had delighted the composer, who hitherto
tanded
dabe lre
disappointed by the Marynsky performances of his work.
A séeond success seemed natural.


But there was already SOHE trouble between the two
men.
The cause was, once more, Diaghilev's homosyeuality.
The Prince had received letters, Diaghilev himself an anony-
The Prince
apartnent
mous powder puff. He called After to his oetice for


/ a heart-to-heart talk. He told Diaghilev that he liked
him for his ideas and his energy, and especially for the
fact that he did things on his own initiative without
having to be urged on.
'And so what I am going to say
is very difficult for me. We are speaking man to man--
en ami---I hope'.
It was not perhaps the most tactful
opening address to a man of Diaghilev's honesty and flair.
The Prince went on to tell him that he offended people
by his whole manner, and that this brought all his construct-
ideas
ive work down in ruin, and might end by ruining him. |50.
'I know and can sympathise with all your difficulties,
because So many of them are my own.
But there is a little
matter which is exceedingly awkward for me to mention, and
it is this.
I don'f have the slightest desire to act as
a censor of morals. Your private life is no concern of
mine, unless it obtrudes itself in such a way that the
prestige of the theatre is involved and the work suffers,
and then as an official I must intervene'.
Apparently
people were talking about Diaghilev in a way that suggested
less discreet behaviour on his part than was wise.
Clearly he was making no secret of his affairs.
Accord-
ing to the Prince, Diaghilev showed great annoyance at
this and suggested that the people who were telling the
worst stories about him were themselves homosexual-- -and
he warned the Prince against them.
What really stung Diaghilev more than anything was the
Prince's opening remark about his 'initiative'.
It was
probably the only time in his life he was patronised, and
it is said that years later when he and the Prince mere
gave
Pack
works together briefly he retuened the remark/to him,
repeating it now that their positions had precisely reversed.
n.p. On his side the Prince was hurt by his indignation.
greatly believed in the man', he told Arnold Haskell much
later.
He remembered the night of their encounter.
was bitterly cold, and after Diaghilev had left his apart-
ment Wolkonsky put the lights out and went to the window,
and saw Diaghilev tsagger wildly down the street like a
ard.
drunke cenman Thertalk had separated them for good. Reart Is-taart
Yeas lats uer thes lueic at tLe Ristwanla (Cmhaslo
iin Rome, Dinghile had sTiil hok trgiven kin.


But however Diaghilev felt about the Prince, it was
telnnes 3 certainly not Ihis doing that the Sylvia project collapsed.
The company simply refused to accept what they felt tto be
the interference on the producer-level of a petty official
whose only claim to fame lay in the airs he gave himself
and the friendship of Kshesingskaya and the Grand Duke
Sergei Mikhailovitch.
There is also a certain amount
fince
of evidence that Diaghilev was intriguing against/Wolkonsky
with the help of the Grand Duke, who wanted to be made
honorary director of the Imperial Theatres, aith Diaghilev
as his artistic director.
According to Benois, Diaghilev
had begun to call at the ducal palace or at Madam Kshesin-
skaya's every day, 'in a state of intoxicated vanity'.
Also his conditionsin accepting the production of Sylvia
had been that he and he alone would have control.
That
was meant as a springboard to the directorship.
The
Legat brothers agreed to dance but Preobrajenskaya didnot.
He now approached Pavlova.
Again according to Benois,
Diaghilev began to behave too 'masterfully', and it was
this that brought the project tumbling down.
Wolkonsky
told him that he had great doubts as to whether the
management committee of the theatre would agree to sub-
mitting to him in everything.
But Diaghilev presented
him with an ultimatum: pither he was allowed a free hand
or he would refuse to produce another Annual. Wolkonsky,
as his senior, insisted that producing the Annual was his
job, and that if he did not want to do his job he should
resign.
Diaghilev refused to resign.
At which Wolkon-
sky said, 'I shall make you'.
All the World of Art
people now withdrew from the production---while,
the
was
92 llel-
other side, there ladbeen a general strike of the/company
against Diaghilev's presence in the theatre.
ThePrince
+ a a
A demand for Diaghilev's resignation was published
officially.
At once the Grand Duke took a train out to
see the Tsar at Taarskoie Selo.
The Tsar gave him the
ambiguous answer that in a similar situation he himself
would have refused to resign.
It seemed like a triumph


for Diaghilev.
But later that day the usual Saturday
report was presented to the Tsar not by the Minister of
the IMperial Court, Baron Fredericks, who happened to be
ill, but by his assistant General Rydzevsky who. disliked
Diaghilev and was indeed his worst ehemy at court.
The
following Monday the GOvernment Gazette published
this short sentence: 'S.P.Diaghilev is dismissed without
pension according to Point 3'. Point 3 involved penalt-
ies for corruption and theft, and its application usually
meant public disgrace and debarment from all further
government service.
Clearly the Tsar had been told some
of those stories about his private life.
Diaghilev was
in bed when he read the news, and almost fainted.
The effect on him was, for his friends, strange and
unexpected.
But it was entirely characteristic.
did not ask for their sympathy or curse his own fate.
He simply hid his feelings and asked that the matter should
never be mentioned again.
Comf
LIng about a iscandal IOr
md W on
When outsiders called at his apartment he
would HOw walk out to meet them like a genial Russian
it So well
magnate.
He could act thet
Then, whenhe
was alone with his friends again, he would collapse into
remain
a sofa and stay sitting there apathetically 'for hours
on end', 7 answering questions 'in a hopeless, absent-
minded way'.
And when he was alone with Dima he wept.
And he had fits of anger. But that was in his bedroom
at the end of the corridor.
Prince Wolkonsky only kept the directorship a few mote
months. more There was another crisis, this time over
Mathilda Kschesinskaya.
One evening she danced in a
costume of her own design instead of the usual: one,
which was
and Wolkonsky had her
She gave vent to her re-
Ris right
fined,h
sentment of Holkimalez and managed to persuade the Minister
of the Court to have the fine cancelled.
It mishs have
been expected.
The Prince knew of her important conn-


ections.
He could hardly underestimate them. Almost
certainly he had used Kschesinskaya's misdemeanour as a
pretext. He offered his resignation at once. Rket / A
mot aum
at the Imperial School,
dearly fer her
'brief triumph'
actice for
whole
seciall;
dLC astrou
et ME G ation
for h e: body
develop
daneer's we I
ent
ell
stase C
power
About
e onth pefore + 1
epet rance sh would stop
neceiving people
tent nd
careful diet.
before the peffermenee she spent entirely
one
1e8 a
atre twehours
before-ourtai: arise
C AS
Kersavine had
sons derate
ereature.
Net
Et a * es
1 farsavina
found shat tespit
dmifin 1
5 getting
fewer and fewer impertant oles
She found eut that
anot!
36 sene
- be director and dvised him
bo sparel Karcavina as she was consumptive
T was
Kshesekaye who persuaded him that this was not n ue.
For KAPSAt
Boss-
iblg
E she was caught up in the Grand Duke's (and
Diaghilev's) intrigue against Wolkonsky, and thought to
repair the damage done to Diaghilev at court.
As it
was, his face was saved by a so-called prikaz or special
declaration which accepted his 'voluntary resignation'
and reinstated him in another branch of the civil service
that was purely nominal.
He ond Wolkoncky met L res RCS
Laterat
and
but Diagh
e et
have
mai.
The World of Art md survived by the skin of its
teeth.
Another rich Mgscow business man, Ilya Ostroukhov,
Isgalte inTd
a professor of the medical academy called Serge
olid
Botkine, lad come forward and done a last-minute rescue
operation. The appearance of the magazine E improved.


Dunghlev
The deep mfutual respect between Serov--perhaps Russia's
greatest painter---Was a mainstay of the enterprise. Also
he and Korovin came more frequently from Moscow than they Radl
previously done.
Serov arbitrated between the frequent
scorching rows between Diaghilev and Bakst (who years later
went mad).
They all adored Bakst for his marvellous
tragady
changeability, fromthe delightful comt to te distraught
as He
A victim of Diaghilev's neglect.
Serov was commissioned
to do a portrait of the former Tsar Alexander 111 from
photographs and his own vivid memory of the man. His The
Tbas
preset
son Nicholas 11 wanted the portrait as a present for the
Danish regiment of which his father had been colonel.
After that Serov painted several members of the royal
family, including the Tsar himself.
Diaghirev persuaded
him to ask the Tsar during a sitting to subsidise The
World of Art, which he did with te 10,000 roubles a
nip.
year for five years. But it was doubtful if the World
of Art circle would survive its inner storms.
In the
Walle
autumn of 1901 several of its members, led b3/Nouvel and A.P.
Nurok, founded Les Spirées de Musique Contemporaine,
a series of chamber recitals devoted to Debussy, Ravel,
Schônberg, Reger, D'Indy, Franck.
Prokofiev and Strav-
insky were given auditions.
Diaghilev was furious at
not having been consukted. Yet it was a hidden tribute
otty simbly
to his powers. The7 were frightenged L
of his domination!
MERE ZHKOUSKY About the same time Dima and his friend Merepkovsky (who
later published essays on Tolstoy and Dostoevsky) Saecseraiud
Les Assemblées Religieuses et Philosophaiues, their
theme the creation of a new Christianity. Diaghilev
kept his nose out of this. His religion was unashamed-
ly worldly.
At no time in his life was he interested in
mystical experience unless it could be conveyed in artist-
ic terms.
He once said, 'There is all eternity to rest
Yet he was aware, spasmodically and fearfully, of
those silences 'outside'.
He always blessed his favour-
ites before a performance, and Sat them down for two
minutes' silence.
And his later attachment to Russia,
that of an exile, had a mystical touch which he himself


would have recognised with difficulty. It was a quality
he rele agnised in Nijinsky,. and
He wanted
it to reside in other people.
For himself, he was happy
enongh to keep the oil lamps burning under his ikons, as
a gesture of approval to what he could not be bothered with.
It was like his need for a home.
Someone else ought to do
it for him. Towards the end of his life he wanted Lifar
to start a family, and he would be the godfather of his
T So
Dima now Crae ers h 11 dfererent
children.
- mID a IV war
wayss #o
Dima
formed his own magazine, called The New
Path, and
tost nterest - Tne World I
et eis In
1903 the: Neva burst its banks and St Petersburg was
ngTer Hal
flooded.
The A
yeafthe Russo-Japanese war broek
out. Everyone thought it would be a small affair, with a
slide La
quick victory.
Ifstead it was the first
legg
Sgrial
- collapse. A
ere-Glearly great uploavahy
A letss ahead.
From January 1 ef thet ar The World
of Art appeared under the joint signatures of Diaghilev
and Benois.
It was the magazine's last year.
The
emperor withdrew his subsidy, due to the expenses of the
Franco-Prussian war. The editors approached Princess
Tenischeva again but she insisted on too many conditions.
Bakst had pneumonia, and almost went mad.
Tarry U J IC a I
t - reti Lakov,
patronof
een eequired 0
fvert to the
Orthodes
- eest
heart searchings.
Lubov Payl
ras actually
N L dow) had
his studio at the
Marynsky
e er
etuall
Likeness
aer
foi
Pair DOT
Pari dress and
t and she was laten seen dangling among other
Everyone oticed
iker ness,
eluding the Toar nd
Their nfatue ti on was
94 HH


Soon after Dima and Diaghilev had a violent quarrel---
and were never friends again.
The autumn of 1905 was a nightmare for St Petersburg.
There were strikes everywhere, and hostile pickets. The
trams satobhaed running.
Dancers asfoot were involved
in this 'October' Revolution.
Karsavina and other
fledgelings of the Marynsky gathered at Michel Fokine's
apartment to discuss EE forming an 'autonomous' group
which would do away with the imperial bureaucracy and
Parbva
raise salaries.
Anna PavaLva was in the group. Secret-
ly Karsavina felt a 'blackmailer', since she knew with
mouddes
what care and concern the State had tarned her indo a
dancer over the previous eight years, and paiesod her
with major roles immediately after her debut. Most of
the other dancers refused to cancel performances, however,
and the little revolutionary group found itself out tgmuballer
a limb. The Minister of the Court then invited
dancanta
theflto
Lsign a declaration of loyatty, and most of themimperi E
lhe
dance did. Sergei Legat cut his throat soon after
angelie
signing this declaration, feeling a traitor to Fokine's
group.
On 16
October a Republic was declared at a mass meeting.
The A
day slalr the Duma was declared, and an amnesty for the
workers in revolt.
As for the Fokine group, it was ad-
monished by Teliakowsky, the new director after Wolkonsky,
and then forgiven.
1905 was a really a rehearsal for the revolution of
1917. Plehve, the M;nister of the Interior, was assass-
inated, and news from the Russo-Japanese front tad got
worse.
The need for reforms was admitted by everyone.


A popular priest called Gapon led a huge crowd of workers
to the Winter Palace to hand in a petition on January 9.
were fired at point-blank.
This was 'Red Sunday'.
The number of victims was not great but it flung St Peters-
burg into an uproar. For days afterwards there were excited
people talking together in the street, watching for another
incident.
It came.
Another column of workers was fired
on during a march towards the Nikolaievsky Bridge.
spite of the emperor's orders the officerof a Finnish reg-
iment had given the order tof - ire. It was much worse
than the first incident.
Onlooking women and children were
were still
killed, F
The royal family had been at Tsarskoie
wliile
Selo eince - he sut
Aen their presence in the city
might havécooled tempers. Troops were picketed all/along
the banks of the Nevsky,
ull
tamo
Everyone was talking of the 'Revolution'
as something almost accomplished.
The Prime Minister,
Witte, got the Tsar to ratify a new constiution,
The Duma
would be called, and it began to look as if the needed
reforms would be passed. Dima and Merezkhowsky published
a pamphlet attacking Nicholas 11 from Paris.
There
Merezhkowsky and his wife (Z. Hippius) ran a kind of rev-
olutionary headquarters at their apartment inyhue Théophile
Gautier, and were in contact with Kerensky.
Dima's int-
erest in the Revolution' was a ferpventighystical one.
Gradually the uproar died down, but not the discontent.
Diaghilev wrote to Benois (once more.in Paris) that he had
proposed to the Secretary of State that he himself should
found a Ministry of Fine Arts independent of the court.
Like Benois, he was tried of the World of Art and was not
sorry to see it disappear.
They had turned down Princess
Tenischeva's suggestion that a painter called N.L.Rorich
should join them on the editorial staff/apparently be-
cause they did not believe in Rorich's good will towards
them, but in fact because they were looking towards more
glorious expressions than an art magazine.
In his letter
Sotial
Diaghilev warned him of the great/struggle ahead for
Russia, and the loss of comforts and civilisation that


this would involve. He was well aware at this time that
these two words were not interchangeable.
He hated Teliakowsky, Wolkonsky's successor in the
Teliakovsky
Jv n
directorship of the Imperial Theatres. t was a quite
A - enbman
geing a guards officer,
and even Wolkonsky's enemies thought that a director
should have a certain refinement.
But Teliakowsky could
play politics. Having a military buddy in almost every
Uyat
depattment) he knew how to stay in a saddle once he had
got there. ifoet this brought the Imperial theatres a
lot of benefit, itet his policy was not af leax ound
persistent. He brought the rather obsessive vogue
of Italian opera to an end, andin Karsavina's words 'almost
forced Rimsky-Korsakov on St Petersburg audiences'.
Sets became bolder in design.
Ballet costumes were
given a softer line, with less muslin round the hips.
And although Benois severely criticised the 1902 prod-
uction of Don Quixote its Moscow ballet-master Alexander
Gorsky did give the corps de ballet a role (they usually
trooped off after their number).
Teliakovsky himself, like so many administrators
who succeed, had no judgement, but his wife, who painted
and designed, did. He characteristically was afraid of
Diaghilev's powers while aware of the weight of fashion
thatmas now behind the World of Art circle.
So he
gave work to Bakst and Benois quite as if
did
Diaghilev
not exist.
In the second number of The World of Art
(1902) Benois attacked the new production of Don Quixote
with its feeble' music by Minkus.
To him and Diaghilev
it seemed only a matter of time before Teliakowsky foll-
owed Wolkonsky. They thought he would be replaced by
Count Jean Tolstoy, vao-WAS a friend of the prime minister's
and an admirer of Diaghilev and his group.
Fokine's
'revolutionary' group also tried to bring Teliakowsky
down. None of it worked.
But there were compensations.
Diaghilev's book on
the portraitist Levitsky was a success.
The Académie
des. Beaux Arts subscribed for a hundred copies, and


private buyers bought four hundred.
And then the
Académie awarded Diaghilev the Ouvarov prize.
o hovte-
now began travelling all over Russia)to collect pictures
tackloo
for a new exhibition at the Palais Tauride (the palace
built by Catherine the Great for her favourite Potemkin),
and drew up a catalogue of over three thousand pictures.
sin meelf
He borrowed porcelain and furniture to fit
the period of the pactures, astonishing even those who
all
had lived with the pictutes mostof their lives by his
deft placing.
Many who had thought him a crank when he


had appeared at their palaces (too big and important
for them, in these days of social collapse) looking for
old Russian pictures allowed, with the Tauride exhibition
before them, that he was a man of judgement after all.
srholaly A short book and a well-designed exhibition---it was re-
markable how easily externals worked on the ordinary
mind, rather than ideas as such.
His ideas were called
his 'extravagances', bizarre like himself.
There was even a banquet to celebrate his success,
while the revolution was going on in the streets outside.
In his reply to the toast he said, 'Every exhibition is a
symbol, because when we honour a person we at the same
time do honour to his ideas...
There i's no doubt that
every tribute is a summing-up, and every summing-up is
an ending...
I think you will agree with me that
thoughts of summing-up and ending come to one's mind more
and more in these days...
Don't you feel that this long
gallery of portraits of big and small people that I have
collected to live in the lovely halls of the Palais
Tauride is only a grandiose summing-up of a brilliant
but alas! dead period of our history?...
With the last
breath of the summer breezes I ended my long travels
across the immensity of Russia...
It was just after
these acquisitive expeditions that I became convinced
that the time to sum up was before us. I saw that not
only in the brilliant portraits of those ancestors, so
far removed from us, but more vividly in their descendants,
who were ending their lives.
The end of a period is
revealed here, in those gloomy dark palaces, frightening
in their dead splendour, and inhabited today by charming
mediocre people who could no longer stand the strain of
bygone parades...
That is what completely convinced me
that we live in a period of transition. We are doomed to
die to pave the way for the resurrection of a new culture,
which will take from us what remains of our weary wisdowm...
We are witnesses of the greatest moment of summing-up in
history, in the name of a new and unknown culture, which
will be created by us, and which will also sweep us away.
That is why, with fear or misigiving, I raise my glass to
the ruined walls of the beautiful palaces, as welllas to


the new commandments of a new aesthetic.
The only wish
that I, an incorrigible sensualist, can express, is that
the forthcoming struggle should not damage the amenities
of life, and that the death should be as beautiful and as
illuminating as. the resurrection'.
When peasants later began pillaging the country
palaces, at'least the three thousand pictures of his
collection were safe.


Paris, Patrons and Penury
In 1904 Isadora Duncan Lac appeared in St Petersburg
for the first time and danced barefoot before audiences
that had only seen dancers in skirts and on points.
Dia-
ghilev, Michel Fokine, Benois and most of the other World
of Art circle saw her.
For Benois she had no sex appeal
and could not approach Virginia Zucchi or Pavlova or Kar-
savina as a dancer.
Sometimes, he said, her dancing 'ex-
hibited thoroughly English airs and graces and a sugary
affectation'.
But her performance was a liberation in
itself.
Her leaps and runs, and above all her pauses,
were 'full of a genuine awareness of beauty'.
Unlike
many of the Russian dancers she also had an 'inner sense
of music', which dictated the smallest movements of her
hands.
Michel Fokine raved about her afterwards, and
certainly for his later choreography her performances were
the chief liberating influence.
According to Diaghilev
'classical ballet in imperial Russia never recovered from
the impact of her dancing'.
The Wotld of Art circle
befriedded her. One night at a banquet givén inher
honour at the Cubat restaurant (Benois was sitting next
to her) she got very drunk and insisted on dancing. The
tables were pushed back and a space cleared for her,
with everyone sitting round in a wide circle.
She took
off her gown and in a short chemise did a wild dance
which she introduced as 'a bacchic dance' and then crashed
on to the carpet, without harming herself. A member
of the group took her back to her hotel afterwards,


where she danced again, rolled on the floor, tried to
embrace him and get him into bed, and apparently would
not calm down.
Fokine described her as 'the greatestAmerican gift
to the dance'.
She proved that all the primitive, plain,
natural movements---a simple step, run, turn on both
feet, small jump on one foot---are far better than all
the richness of the ballet technique, if to this technique
must be sacrifieed grace, expressiveness and beauty'.
When she was asked once with whom she had sudied dancing
she replied, 'With Terpsichore'.
The Russians recognised
the refreshing freedom but saw the dangers of indiscipline.
demondaled
Duncan herself did too---she showed this when ste years
she
later/asked Fokine to run a class in dance technique at
her school.
What her influence did do was to liberate
new
the marvellously rich Russian technique intojballets that
were moving and had meaning, and seemed to be the living
expression of the music accompanying them. Diaghilev
himself said little about her, though he came to know
her closely.
It was like him to absorb an influence
silently and then act on it years later.
There was no
doubt that ballet had lost all of its stigma as the Cinder-
ella of the arts in Russia by the end of the nineteenth
century.
People fought for seats now, though most of
them were subscribed.
The subscribers of the first stalls
excluded outsiders jealously, and there was seldom a new
face that did not come chaperoned by a familiar one.
The audiences had become expert, and followed every
movement on the stage with a merciless eye. There was
all-night queuing for 'paradise' or the Gods. While
showing relative indifference towards the ballet, Diaghilev
was becoming more and more aware of its growing signif-
icance.
For the moment there was no mention of it. Buthe
LOW
wes
He had hoped to
be made Masterf of Ceremonies at court, with the Grand
Duke Nicolas Michaelovitch's support. But this failed.
fousd
onall sider
He still et A
at vehement enemies/whensm-r he tried


for an official post.
He went to Greece with his secretary Alexis
fwit whom
aVin Mavrink but not before he had organised one last exhibition,
Re Jas
Rgai
in the winter of 1906, just to show---in Benois's words--
what 'virtue lay in dictatorship, and to prove that, where
he was concerned, the wish was father to the deed'. It
was a triumph---an effective parthian shot.
From Greece he went to Italy again, then Germany and
on to Paris, where he heard from Alexandre Benois that since
succespul
the Universal Exhibition there, with its)Russian pavilion
designed by Korovin, interest: in Russia had.been growing.
It seemed S sign for him. He decided to bring Russian
art to Paris, as a first step, and he approached the directors
of the new Salon d'Automne.
His aunt, Anna Filosofova,
was also staying in Paris at the time (he met Dima at her
house but they were cold towards each other). The idea
kis
of 7 Paris exhibition was to show two centuries of Russian
painting and sculpture, together with a collection of ikons.
The World of Art painters were to get a good showing--
Rophrich, Somov, Serov, Sudeikine, Prince Trubetzkoy,
Vrubel, Korovin, Paul Kuzenetzov, Dobuzhinsky, and of course
Bakst and Benois.
Diaghilev found his way into the -
best French society, no difficult job for him as he was so
manifestly out of the top drawer himself. Mme Guy de
Pourtalès introduced him to Comtesse de Greffulhe, who
was to become one of his most important patronesses.
Her cousin was Count Robert de Montesquieu, who had a
superb white villa in Neuilly.
If any single man decided
what it was elegant for a Parisian to like B
matters of art it was the count ('Robert de Charlus', in
Proust's novel, was based on him).
The countess was not
at first impressed by Diaghilev when he asked to call on
her 'about a certain scheme'.
She told Serge Lifar that
at frst
I mnan
indeed she had had 'no
impression at all', as he sat staring at a statue in her
room. She inclined to think him 'a sort of young snob
or shady adventurer, with a remarkable conversational
But then he started talking about the pictures
on her walls, and it became evident to her that he knew


wkal-h Lo Du talk ah
And she really began to understand him
when he sat at the piano and began playing unfamiliar
Russian music that was 'so fresh, so Altogether wonderful
and lovely'.
When he explined to her that he wanted to
organise a festival of Russian music in the following year
she promised 'without the slightest doubts or misgivings'
to help him any way she could.
It was a propitious time, too, to begin his activities
in Paris.
The politicians were talking of a Franco-
Russian entente.
He himself had come to the end of his
possibilities in Russia.
Above all, Paris was consid-
ered the centre of the world for the artist---and there is
Such
a lot inja consideration if you are going to mount an
annual festival of the arts, which is really what Diaghilev
did even in his ballet years. But, evCA more than this,
ochally c
place
with
Paris was more
the artist, in its moringt
congenial/sor
teguiling
combination of intelligence L sensuality, -
aywiere
else inEnrope.
Compared) with Berlin's railway station
the Gare de L'Est looked ramshackle and old-fashioned.
As a newcomer to the city you were flung suddenly into
a world that seemed familiar only for the briefest mom-
Suon
ent.
Te A Youyrealised that you had never known anything
A maruellm
like it. You heard, smelled, saw A
eecconnigis!
DE net It impinged on your So forcefully with
the noise of its carriages and the bright exteriors of
its boulevard cafés and the market cries and the women
in shalws and clogs and the endless bustle on the pave-
ments, that you had no time for detached comparisons.
You only knew that here, for better or for worse, a
frenzied and exhilarating activity was going on. It
was a dirty and noisy city. You had difficulty crossing
Seet.
the readsa Its gloomy and undistinguished outskirts,
seen from the train, gave no promise of what you would
find when the station had disgorged you---into the arms
of hotel touts who offered to take your bags.
It had
a bad reputation.
You could get robbed, swindledr SO
the stories said.
It was virtually a southern city,
a Naples of the north, with that busling and insistently


attentive warmth of a world in full flower.
There were
carts and carriages and cabs, and endless shouting and
clattering and shutter-banging.
The smaller hotels were
pokey and often lice-ridden, with torn carpets and faded
Rovenup i
curtains and the stink of lavatories and kitchens
tte
foyer And on the other hand there were clean pensione
run by courteous people, the windows giving out on to
quite courtyards. A lot of money was concentrated in
the higher classes.
There was plenty for lavishing on
the arts.
At the auction of the Goncourt brothers in
1897 the whole of Paris society had turned up, and (to
the accompaniment of booing from the 'proletariat'
present) tiny drawings had fetched 28,000 francs. Even
the air of Paris was te +
exhilaratime see -
seemed
And there were
already a good many Russians.
Prince Tenishev, among
others, came to Paris for the annual season and kept some
of the most elegant carriages in the city, despite/being
the pioneer aumtomobile-manufacturer if St Petersburg.
You heard singing everywhere---washerwomen, bricklayers,
even the beggars.
You saw flocks of goats in the street-
Parisians loved their goat-milk.
There were the carnivals
of Mardi Gras and Mi-Carême, So boisteraus that no one
could avoid being caught up in them.
In Montmartre
there was Le Cabaret du Néant where beer was sold by
torch-bearers and called choléra and peste, and served
on a black coffin.
Diaghilev and the organisers of the Salon d'Automne
agreed on an Exposition de 1'Art Russe à Paris, to be
seen in the Grand Palais.
He returned to St Petersburg
and together with Bakst began to search out exhibits.
(He seioh d
The Grand Duke Vladimir/ agreed to become president of
2Alexander
the exhibition, and the presidents of honour were to be
U sns
the Russian ambassador in Paris, M. Nelidov, the Comtesse
de Greffuhle, and Dujardin-Beaumetz, MhOWIS Uder Secretary
san
of State to the Minister of Fine Arts. A patron's
committee was formed under Count Jean Tolstoy. It
looked as if all the social artillery would be sited
in Diaghilev's support.


Above all, he was to be in sole artistic control.
He went back to Paris with the artists Soudeikine and
Paul Kouznetzov, and Walter Nouvel.
Bakst was to be
in charge of the general décor of the exhibition, and
750 items were to be displayed in twelve rooms.
enotmous
together the exhibition occupied four hige halls and
some smaller ones.
The works, apart from those of the
World of Art meméers, were drawn from the eighteenth
and early nineteenth century.
By now the Tsar had con-
ceived a real dislike for Diaghilev, but the Grand Duke
and his wife Maria Pavlovna ('the small court' as they
fis
were called) still spoke in/favour, - HF
And it
at leat
could not be denied, even at court, that he wasje campeuye
organiser.
On this occasion it is probable that Dia-
ghilev put his hand in his own pocket to meet some of the
fxRilits.
expenses, for instance that of transporting the p € ee
tteir
Some criticised his hanging of the ikons; these brilliance
was somewhat shaded by the sparkling brocade on which they
le hung. them. Bnt this brocade covered the hall from
remgrko alla
top to bottom, ad achievea a quite unbe D
ne coup
d'oeil.
#HOT
ked tir
As for Bakst'scontribution he repeated his
motif
the Taurid palace exhibition in St Petersburg
by building trellises and bowers for the busts bShubin and
Shchedrin, with a portrait of'the mad Tsar Paul 1 by
Borovikovsky in the centre.
Diaghilev said in his fore-
word to the catalogue that the exhibition was 'a faithful
image of artistic Russia today, in its sternuous seeking,
its respectful admiration for the past, and its ardent
faith in thé futuréi:
Tas
yond et wha
The 'ambulant' school
wasikept out---it was his way of destroying them for the
tor
rest of the world, and perhaps]the rest of time too.
Levitsky's girls of the Smolny" instutute' drewa lot
of attention.
There was a vast mural from Vrubel,
a group of landscapes by Levitan, and some of Serov's
portraits.
Benois gave a lecture on the last two


centuries of Russian art.
There were several concerts
devoted to Russian music,
Dia-
ghilev gave an intimate recital in his rooms at the Hotel
Mirabeau, with Scriabin playing the piano and Chaliapine
singing (sometimes to Diaghilev's accompaniment).
The
weather throughout was 'abominably hot'.
One da
appeared
: DE
1 se En
and
ated
excitement.
At the end of the exhibition Diaghilev was offered the
Legion of Honour but turned it down in favour of Bakst
reall
and et
because it was 'not uncommon or picturesque
enough'.
His return to St Petersburg was in a glow of
success, for he had done more than any.government could have
to make Russia understeadetl 00
te in France.
But France needed to understand more, especially
about Russian music.
He had already spoken to the Comtesse
de Greffuhle about a series of concerts to be held in
the spring of 1907 at the Opéra.
In St Petersburg he
spoke to the Chamberlain of the Imperial court, Alexandre
Taneyev, who was also a composer.
Taneyev agreed to
preside over a special committee consisting of Rachmaninov,
Glazunov, Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikisch and, with a number of
Diaghilw
pesfom
others, Diaghilev. K
promised Pant we that he woulajone 2
Tapaer's
pes
a symphony hE 1 aduritten, though he disliked 4s tel work
Robert Drussel, the Parisian art critico who trad praised
ussien xhibi ton in the HT agro appened LQ near
Diagnilev had invited him
enshurg Lohandle
publ
andsay - ne
include
The conductors were to be
Rimsky-Korsakov,
AIKISCH
Atjisch,
Felix Blumenfeld, Chevillard, Glazunov and Rachmaninov.
(chef
ochesive The solo pianist was to be Felix Litvin, and among the
singers were Chaliapine, Smirnov, Kastorsky and Cherkasskaya.
al keImbenk
For the music there was to be Rimsky Korsakov's symphonic
per >
poem Christmas Eve, Glin LA overture and first act of Glinka,
siletolug
Russlan and Ludmila, as well as various songs and scenes
(vt Rurt Bnsel, Ergana cnlic O le Fijaro, Tkeol
a Le WG l Raudle Dinghular! poris i Pans).


from Rimsky-Korsakov's Earious operas and ballets, in-
cluding the submarine scene from Sadko. Tchaikowsky's
second and fourth symphonies were to be performed, and
also excerpts from Borodin's Prince Igor. Mussgorsky
was to be represented by Trepak, Song of the Flea and
the second act of Boris Godunov. Alexandre Taneyev's
second symphony was to be heard. (worthless' as Diaghilev
found 1, Liadov's Eight Folk Songs and Baba Yaga, and
Scriabin's piano concerto and second symphony.
There
was to be Rachmaninov's second piano concerto and his
cantata Spring, with Balakirev's Thamar, Flazunov's
second symphony, Liapunov's piano concerto and a piece
from Caesar Cui's opera called William Ratcliff.
the programme there wege biographical notes for each
composer, and some analytical notes on the music, with
a general introduction to Russian music.
Diaghilev
chose the Liapunov piece as a reluctant tribute to the
Ponitan
tastes of his/audience, who thought that composer a
characteristic 'Russian'. Strangely, as
mert
they would not admit that Tchaikowsky was precisely
this.
Not even Nikitsch, though at the height of his
fame, and the star of the series, could convert them
Haseend
him with masterly conducting/ Nor did the Parisians
( foustl
Rere
have much time for Rachmaninov, thoughithey had the
symphonies.
excuse that he was not yet famous. It was Rimsky-Korsak-
whon
oV, Borodin and Mussorgsky M the audiences went for.
And of these Mussorgsky created the most delight.
More
than any other Russian composer too, he influenced the
hotage
French composers of the time like Debussy and Ravel.
Diaghilev was not altogether happy with the way things
went. For a start Nikitsch took Glinka's overture to
Russlan and Ludmilla much too slowly for his taste, so
that its effect was lost---and this at the opening of the
series.
Diaghilev's flair for publicity had worked
quite well, especially with the help of Michael Calvocor-
essi, one of the prominent music critics in Paris, who
was also Russian.


As to whether the series was a success. opinions
differ.
The concerts were certainly attended.
They
attracted press attention.
And they kept Dia-
ghilev on the map for future seasons. But the triumphs
were Chalipaine's singing of Muss
for Galitzsky'ssog
Borodin',
infrince Igor, and Mussorgsky.
Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov
and Glazunov were praised, but there was clearly little
sympathy between them and the French composers, Feon whothar
Debussy t d'Indy. The late-night arguments at the Café
and Ther-fncnels
de la Paix where the Rassians/Eathered, were very hot.
Scriabine came off ratfer badly.
He arrived in some
Ryslencal Capikon
na -
I anervous state from New York and found no com-
plimentary tickets waiting for him for the performance
of his own symphony.
(the second concert of the sneies.
They amtechyat his apartment just before he was leaving.
During the interval he went up to Diaghilev and began
o mb
Teh Diaghilev sgida thact If hefett yon feal
complimentary tickets tobe so important yau should.look
after them A unegg a
in future!' Scribain shoutad, STEE, 'I am a
reppresentative of Art, while you only gallivant about
on the fringe!, which so astonished Diaghilev
STaseol at
Comb vLes with Ri ho uth
Eugma
injustice that he ginply
darde
in e
World, of-Astjcigolous djssatisfied. Their field was
the plastic arts, end they regarded musichas the 'integr-
ating element' in a stage spectacle. It was natural
Hould
that they eotta not see a role for themselves in the
concert hall.
This, and the success Of Chaliapine and
Mussorgsky, seemed to lead naturally to the idea that
the following season should be devoted to opera.
Such
a thing had now become Diaghilev's dream-- -an imposing
theatrical enterprise that would give OT
Tme
an overall picture of Russian work, now that/Parisians
had had, so to speak, some training in things Russian. He
Uf as decided to bring Miussorgsky's Boris Godunov to over,
with Feodor Chaliapine singing the title role, in
the spring of 1908.
Back in Russia Diaghilev beganjsearch:


for old costumes to fit Mussorgsky's sixteenth-century
setting. He insisted on as much authenticity as poss-
ible, and together with Benois he scoured the Jewish and
Tartar shops of St Petersburg to buy up silks, brocades,
gold- and spangle-embroidered kerchiefs and head-dresses
to dazzle Paris.
The
par inted - I the Hermitage
theatre-- great
ourt He even
sent Bilibine, an expert in ikons, to northern Russia to
go from one village to another collecting hand-woven
sarafans which had been in the possession of peasants
for centuries.
The scenery was painted at the Hermitage
theatre---a great concession from the court.
The in-
fluence of the Grand Duke Vladimir had worked.
The
chorus came from the Bolshoi theatre in Moscow.
And
the technicians came from Moscow too, under the dynamic
And Diaghilev was given access to Russia's
finest singers.
But there were kitches.
Golovin failed to deliver
his costume - designs on time, due to the fact that he was
a protégé of Teliakowskyls. But even te opposition
from this quarter (supported by the assistant director
Alexander Dmitrivitch Krupensky) faded as it was
fealised what an exciting venture the presentation of
Mussorgsky to the western world was going to be.
The
Grand Duke Vladimir went on opening doors, and involving
the wealthy.
Diaghilev, according to Benois, was 'ob-
sessed, overcome, maniacal' as never before. The diffic-
ulties that cropped up only seemed to attract and fascinate
him. The work of preparation was tough and long. The
axue at
sarafans and seed-pearl embroideries cantinued to) ome in He
linapast
Ta E
Lev wanted many cuts in the opera, terrified of
teworf
boring his ayddence. He found/ /it like most Russian
operas too long and untidy, and wanted a straight dramatic
line.
He asked Rimsky-Korsakov to amplify the coronation
scene, which he liked above all the others. Remishit an


Rimsky-Korsakov also restored certain numbers absent
in the first (1874) staging of Boris. He wanted to
restore the famous peel of bells, rather against the
judgement of Diaghilev and his friends---but he got his
way and it caused a sensation in Paris.
He had end-
less discussions with the 'committee'.
Diaghilev was
afraid of 'dragging out the opera---which anyway most
people said the French would never understand.' There was
also the question of having a live horse on the stage---
Diaghilev hated the idea, remembering that at Bayreuth
Brunhilde's horse invariably dunged te begads in full
view of the audience.
'Besides', he said, 'they never
look like real horses'.
And of course he was terr-
ified of glanders (there was a slightoutbreak in St
Petersburg at the time and he was going about muffled
up to ME eyes).
Dmitri was therefore to be brought on
standing on a sleigh drawn by adoring peasants---a simply
brilliant stroke.
This was the real Diaghilev touch.
In his casting too he showed to what extent hé was à'
man of theatre.
Chaliapine as the sinister. Tsar Boris
was perfect, but. his, choice -of the inexperienced Smirnov
as Dmitri for his superb voice showed real flair. Shuisky
was to be played by Alchevsky with his rather nasal voice,
fitting a sly character.
The conductor was to be Blumen-
feld, the stage director A. Sanin (who directed at the
Alexandrinsky theatre and was to give Michel Fokine one
of his first breaks as choreographer despite Krupensky's
lalso -
x.p. oppoizition. Alexandre Benois was the unofficial I rem
who had to explaini the French to the Russians and vice
a, aim C + rh
versa
task.
The Opéra staff---ot rather
the stagehands and minor officials--were, as abstructive
as they could be towards this 'horde of Asiatics'.
Theur
fanatically hours of work the were)tigid, andAhothing would drag a
stagehand back to work during"lunch or after official
time.. Lunch was so sacred that if it hapo stabbed. B the
Ever du me oggicial time
crucial rehearsal,
T T+
nat
Xta agal Aped kept running out for a coup de


blanc or 'shot of white wine'. Everything the Russians
asked for was 'impossible'. First of all, an opera
as complicated as Boris could not be mounted in such a
short time---even the top officials agreed here. It
was 'impossible' for singers to rehearsopn'stage.
No scenery like that visualised for Boris could be set
up, since the stage was needed during rehearsal-time
and immediately after the Russian production for the
Opéra's already very full repertory.
Yet the bargain
made,
Diaghilev had cometo with the pera directorate was
that after the production the Boris sets and costumes
work
should be given to the Opéra so that thebopeza could
join its repertore and later be sung in French.
matters turned out the Opéra sold this property to the
Met in New York, where the second production of Boris
took place but independently of the Russians.
The walk-on parts were played by people off the
streets, who stank horribly.
Monsieur Petroman, the
chief mechanic, was the chief saboteur too. He was
determined that the enterprise should be- failt e,and
tkat end. - devoted all his time to
He alse
basbanans'
wanted to make sure that thése T
of whom only
hever
Benois and Diaghilev spoke French--should.come ba
againi
disturb the cosy Opéra
The scenery, transported
Lin
cluby
from St Petersburg by train, gave,the chance he was waiting
for.t 1
The canvas flats had to
be fixed to the wings, and the hanging parts adapted to
the stage's exfsiting cables and rings.
The windows and
doors were found not to fit, and had to be cut; new stairs
wrese
and platforms/ built. And the canvases only arrived five
days before the dress rehearsal.
'What tension there was,
what nerves,what exhaustion and despair! says Benois.
Meanwhile Diaghilev was rushing about Paris wining and


dining thePress and the rich and influential.
When
at last the company could rehearse with the orchestra
(only two or three rehearsals were allowed) the stage-
hands made such a noise hammering and shouting that
Diaghilev had to be ready with a twenty-franc gold piece
to 'sweeten' them when Chaliapine or another principal
came on to sing.
Then Petroman acted. On the day of the semi-
dress rehearsal, forty-eight hours before the public one,
he announced that a delay of three or four days would be
necesaary since the décor did not reach the boards and
there was much repair work to be done. Diaghilev calmly
replied that he would under no circumstances postpone the
show and was preparad if necessary to do it without any
décor at all.
Petroman was so frightened by this promise
of a scandal that he put his men to work at once and the
seven scenes all reached the floor by the time of the dress
rehearsal.
was
of desperate tension
On He higlr
semi-
dress nekearal.
inastate
Everygne
osgicii
just the samë. / Pchallapine refused to make up, or to change
after the coronation scene. He said he had forgotten the
Pushkin text which had to be recited at the striking of the
clock, and to be on the safe side Benois put the actual
Pushkin book on the table before - - + -
A lit by a hidden lamp.
Getting the great singer
on to the stage was a job all its own.
'Never have I
experienced such terror and gooseflesh as on that night',
Benois wrote afterwards.
There was still much to be done
before the first night.
The choir-singing had to be re-
hearsed again. At midnight there was 'an uncontrollable
orgy' as a mass of 'filthy, stinking people'with false
beards and hastily pushed-on boyar fur coats and caps
unloosed themselves on to the vast stage of the Opéra,
which was illuminated by only one candle, and began to
sing and dance on their own, screaming with laughter,
while the Russians shouted for order helplessly.
Even


the fearless Diaghilev looked green.
Chaliapine
prevailed on the rest of the cast to ask for a postpone-
ment, and Diaghilev---democratic for the first and last
time in his life-- --called a meeting of the entire com-
pany, including the Russian props, to decide what was
to be done.
Fear of failure increased with the
fatigue. An announcement to the Press was worded.
Diaghilev remembered afterwards that the most vocif-
erous speaker was R.F.Valz, backed up by his staff
and the wig-maker Feodor Grigorievitch Zaika, who
always reminded him of Hoffmann's Drosselmeyer.
They all 'worked themselves into a frenzy', and urged
that postponement would mean ruin for the company. He
decided th take the risk and let the show
But there was still a surprise waiting for
him
Diaghiler
I when he got back to his hotel. Chalifaine was there to
tell him that he could not go on after al1. 'I'm in a
funk, absolutely terrified'.
He was trembling, a the
sweat was pouring out of him. He refused to go to his
own bed, or to leave Diaghilev, So he slept on a sofa in
Diaghilev's room that was far too small for him. The
next day the coronation, the polonaise and the revolt scenes
were rehearsed three times under
Diaghilev's supervision.
Thirty seamstresses were sewing like mad. Painters were
giving banners and ikons last touches.
Simultaneously
Diaghilev was reading the proofs of the magnificent
programme.
The stage director Sanin was dressed up as
a policeman so that he could be among the crowd, and was
pulling them here and there in/groups with marvellous
ubiquity.


The production was ready only a few minutes before
curtain-up.
Benois was still at the top of a ladder,
in top hat and tails, overpainting a damp stain on the
monastery wall when the overture began. Diaghilev
hardly had time to change. Ht By the end of the first
scene he noticed that the audience was beginning to
enjoy itself.
During the coronation scene he realised
that the evening was going to be a triumph, though at
the time he was supervising the entrance of the process-
ion from the wings. During the second interval the
French stagehands, who now realised that the opera was
a success, ran forward to help him as, in tails and
white gloves, he pushed hedges and benches on to the
set for the Polish garden scene. The audience 'went
wild' during Chaliapine's mad scene.
The only setback
was the length of the second interval, because the chief
mechanic Valz insisted on hanging huge chandeliers
for the scene in the Great Hall of the Kremlin, and
the audience began to stamp.
But Chaliapine's
triumph at the end made up for that.
As to Benois, he had dashed round to the director's
box at curtainrise to explain the opera to the critic
Bellègue (he and Debussy had been the first to announc e
their appreciation of Russian music). The coronation
scene, Diaghilev's Eandoyice, went off beautifully with
its row of superbly dressed boyars 'like a wall' behind
the procession.
Diaghalev, with his insinct for con-
trasts, lighted the ecene showing the Kremlin and Moscow(s
cathedrals as a brilliant sun-lit one (contrary to
stage directions), to give it sharp relief after the
dark monastery cell.
It was a good theatrical stroke
but meant that Pimen, the monk, threatened the Tsar Boris
before he had become Tsar.
But no one noticed.
Dia-
ghilev ended the opera at Boris's death (a real coup de
théâtre for Chaliapine) and not with Mussorgskt's song
of the simpleton which the composer had written to denote
that Russia was about to enter an age of troubles.
Bellègue, Debussy, Calvocoressi and a number of others


were against Diaghilev's cutting of the inn scene
(he disliked its 'messiness and coarseness').
But
the evening was a great success, if still not the kind
of immediate triumph they all hoped for. Thete were h.12:
no protests from the Press.
After the performance
Diaghilev and the company, together with his cousin
Pavel Koribut-Kubitovitch, had a little celebration among
themselves and a lot of champagne was drunk.
They
returned to their hotels at dawn arm-in-arm, reluctant
to part.
Benois and Diaghilev with Paffka' reached
the Place Vendôme and looked up challengingly at 'that
other conqueror', Napoleon.
Ever baet
Chalipaine kept saying as they walked along the deserted
boulevards, 'We've done something tonight.
I don't
know what, but we've really done something!'
Back
in their rooms they continued calling to each other,
Benois from the Hotel de L'Orient to Dia-
ghilve across the yard at the Hotel Mirabeau.
The sun
was already high in the sky when 'Paffka', still drunk,
came to Benois' room and began calling across to Diaghilev
all tound
loudly from the window.
The shutters/began to open, and
indignant faces looked out.
The porter knocked on their
door.
Benois had to drag him from the window and put him
to sleep on the sofa for what remained of the morning.
According to Benois, Mme Misia Edwardes and Mme
Bernardaki (wife of the Russian expatriate Nicolai Bernard-
aki, who was to be a patron of the Russian Ballet) were
But
at that Café de la Paix celebration. Misia Sert (as Mme
Edwardes became later, when she married the painter José
Sert) maintains in her book Two or Three Muses that she
saw Diaghilev for the first time at Prunier's a few nights
later, when she was dining there with her future husband.
Her maiden name was Godenska, and she was born of Polish
and Belgian parents.
At this time, still married to the


rich proprietor of Le Matin and able to be a most useful
friend, she was still in her twenties, a
and intell-
lively
nonnen le
igent woman who appealed to Diaghilev/st-ums.
This is
clappel eyes
what she wrote in her book about te
61 Rer.
Boris:
'For the first night I had invited a few friends into the
big box between the pillars.
But in the middle of the
first act I was SO moved by the music that I made my way
to the gallery and remained sitting there on a step till
the end...haliapine's voice rose powerful and magnificent
above Mussorgsky's overwhelming music...
I left the


theatre stirred to the point of realising that something
had been changed in my life.
The music was with me always...
I made incessant propaganda for this work and dragged to
it all the people I loved.... Not satisfied with attending
every performance, I ordered that all the unsold seats should
: be brought to me, so-that 'no place remained unsold and Diaghil-
ev had the encouraging illusion of financial success'.
h. b
That was the kind of role she was to play.throughout Dia-
ghilev's grer comforting him and sharing every,problem,,
at least when he turned up in Paris. She was always the
first person he felehhaned Cat 4 ed her Ae arrived IE TE and their lalest
uStER wondd ee
Last quarrel---they had many- WE
TE =
forgotten. She
was the best friend he ever hado
Indaad
collabwaby
L they were So close that his f
thought thatshe had destroyed the woman-hater in him
and
might marry. her But she was sA'sister, A
forhir
During one of their quarrels he wrote to her, 'Please
remember that not So very long ago we came to the conclusion,
in all seriousness, that you were the one woman on earth
that we loved.
That is why it is so unworthy of a sister
to make such a to-do about not having had any letters for
same
some time'. And, carlier in thelletter, 'You say it isn't
me that you love, but my work. Well, I can say the opposite,
that I love you with all your faults, and the feelings I
have for you are those I should have had for my sister,
if I had ever had one.
Unfortunately, I never had, so
all these feelings crystallise round
yoying a A da d Hel
As with all his close friends, he War
rehpasal, as d
time, at hEs dinner parties, due E
B perforamnces
and no excuses, such as that oTE had husband, were accept-
Yet
Achusba
able. U
Bit, of the two of thèma according to Serge
Lifar), Diaghilev always proved the weaker, because in the
eveu
end he was
E conciliatory andl'passive' He
togettar with.
met her for the first time tott
à Tac
Prncers
iE wa
wae
A another patron of his ballet seasons,
at a party given
Pelijnne)
by.the Brincess
June 4
that Gabriel Astruc, who had produced the concerts of
Russian music, approached the Grand Duchess Pvalovna who
with tore Re leved.


also
was/present, with the idea of a ballet season.
Through-
out his career Mme Sert and Brincess Polignac were Diaghilev's
'two muses'.
Certaily
Maria Pavolvna's support was/an important factor in
launching the ballet idea. Before marrying the Grand Duke
Vladimir Alexandrovitch she had been the Duchess of Meck-
lenburg, and the had managed to make of her 'little court'
at Tsarskoe Selo,in the. ducal palace, a more radiant centre
Nicolay
of intelligent people than the Tsar/and his empress (whom
both the Grand Duke and Maria PavaLina hated for her dull-
ness) could achieve, apart from the fact that Nicolas,
being the Grand Duke's nephew, probably felt inferior to Vladiniv,
who 3 ase os
huort te
kim and
ther domineering Grand
duken
Dukest-
oturgranp (there were twenty-seven of them . Maria Pavolvna had
lm a
a quick mind and a vivacious presencr, while her husband
hid a fervent interest in ikons and dancing and painting
delivery -
under a loud voice and/rough HATTOT
Karsavina H
described how he shouted 'in the most good-natured way'
dunng C
even in the theatrer He was 'exceedingly handsome and
pefomnance, of a commanding presence' and about sixty at this time.
He once caused a little fever of excitement at Hee dancing
school by asking another pupil for He--fKarsavina's,
photograph., after he had seen her dance, shouting 'She
will beat them all in time!' The photograph hod
Cn was
provided by the school, out of fear, f
but to make up for the breach of the rule against any
as well .
form of favouritism the whole class was photographed/
The Grand Duke had become very fond of Diaghilev,
and part of his joy in being his patron was to make the
other grand dukes feel fools, not to mention the Tsar
didhol
himself.
He had F believed in Boris, grand enterprise
though it was'on paper! In fact, he was mortally afraid
m thui
for
and neither he nor his wife went to Paris
ucla nou
Diaghiley,
for the first performance. Then the telgrams started
coming in describing the gens success. He and his
ro Pars.
duchess took the Nord-Express/ eno
'The.Grand Duke,' Diaghilev said, 'was genuinely happy
and proud that this project which he had been almost the


only one to encourage. o should have met with So outstand-
ing a success'.
The Grand Duke was amazed at the high
quality of thee production, and gave a party for Diaghilev
C i
and the company at the Hotel Coninetal where he was staying.
rathe
A N
uprisingly
In his speech he said. 'It isn't thanks to me or Diaghilev
that Boris is such a success---it's all your doing. We
only planned it; you made it come true'. Nothing could
have been wider of the truth---and naturally most of those
who heard him thought that he was displeased with Diaghil-
ev.for
The fact was that,t at/they eally knew
how essential Diaghilev had been to every aspect of the
Rave
production. Only a frand puke couldytakewsuch dynamic
powers of leadership for granted.
Before he returned to St Petersburg the Grand Duke Madimir
asked him, 'Is it true you're 20,000 roubles down?' Dia-
disteleing!y ghilev said, 'No'.
The Grand Duke smiled)and said,
Ad Re unld
'Perhaps you'd rather notify me in writing?'
t ask the emperor to 'make it up' if Diaghilev told him
the truth.
Again Diaghilev said,'No, it isn't true'.
realised Ke
auol
The Grand Duke -
eame ever to him, har made
the
Rearda
Draghiles:
falre repot sign of the cross overy
'May this blessing
preserve you from all evil intrigue!'
It was obvious
that there had been quite a lot of it recently in St.
Petersburg.
The truth was however that there had been quite a
few gaps in the theatre on some nights.
And it was really
only at the last two of the eight performances that the
opera had been fully appreciated.
The triumph was a
social one, and there was now the question of what to
follow it up with.
In a letter written in 1928 Dia-
ghilev looked back at those years: 'From opera to ballet
is but a step.
At that time there were more than four
hundred ballet dancers on the rospter of the Imperial
cheatres. They had all had a remarkably good training
and they danced the traditional classical ballets..
I could not help observing, however, that among the
younger members of the St Petersburg ballet, a sort of
reaction to the classical tradition, which Petipa so


jealously preserved, was beginning to make itself felt.
From that moment I began wondering whether it would not be
possible to create a number of short new ballets, which
besides being of artistic value, would link the three main
factors, music, decorative design, and choreography far
more. closely then before.
The more I thought about it,
the clearer it seemed that a real ballet could only be
created by the perfect combination of all these factors.
That is why when I am producing a ballet, I never for a
moment lose sight of one of these factors'.
ted/r
The 'younger member(she refers/ were Michel Fokine
with and Karsavina, Anna Pavlova, Nijinsky, together with
(tough
ocia Kshesinskayah Adolf Bolm and Monakhov.
He foresaw that
great
pes serves)
a ballet of the kind he had in mind---a departure from
Petipa's mimed and danced stories (sometimes in
cunf
tarecyacts)
like La Fille du Pharaon and four ae
ike Le Roi
Candaule---needed far more than Hetireless organiser as
a mastet
the Grand Duke saw him, It needed A - 6 eU sorseeing mind.
'Thus', 9 the letter goes on, 'I often visit the scene-
painting studios, the sewing-room, attend orchestral
rehearsals, and every day visit the production studio
to watch my artistes at work, from the stars to the boys
in the sorps de ballet, completing their training.'
Many ether people have claimed that they staried conceivsel
c Crallet
Diaghilev's a let ideale and uI
m Victor
fn K7n his biography of his wife Anna Pavlova Dandré
maintained
Pari
him
that Diaghilev was impressed by Pavlova's success abroad.
A group under the artistic directorship of Adolf Bolm
had left St Petersburg to tour Heslsingfors, Stockholm,
Copenhagen, Prague in May 1908 with Pavlova as the prima
ballerina and Nicolas Legat as premier danseur.
Bolm
was thus the pioneer.
After he had finished school
in 1904, winning the first prize of his year, he made
it a habit to travel during the summer months in Germ-
any, France and Italy, and from these travels came
the idea of forming a company out of imperial theatre
dancers and touring them abroad.
The first 1908 tour


was so successful that he repeated it the following
year, again with Pavlova, this time adding Berlin
his
te itinerary.
Before he joined Diaghilev he also
performed in London at the Empire theatre with Lydia
Kyasht, and was offered a three-year contract there
as choreographer, which he rejected when he got the
(6ffer) Prom Diaghilevt. It was thus no new thing I
for Russian dancers to appear in the west.
Dandré and Pavlova, at a lunch in St Petersburg some time ih 1908
h 2
na vear tried to persuade Diaghilev to take a company
abroad.
Gabriel Astruc, the Paris impresario, also
claimed that he SO persuaded Diaghilev to try ballet
fle salve
in Paris, in the summer of that year. A ve
exering
Romola Nijinsky, in her book on her husband,
writes that in the early winter of 1909 Vaslav Nijinsky,


jue Hen
who had/joined Diaghilev's circle, came to him with a
proposition, 'Sergei Pavlovitch, why not form a troupe
from the Ballet of the Marynsky theatre and take it to
Paris? Don't you want to show the world what we dancers
can do?' For a moment, she says, Diaghilev was taken
aback, then he began to think. 'Vaslav was perfectly
right.
Western Europe had great music, great painters,
great theatres.
But Russia was the only country to
possess in this century a great ballet and great dancers.
Diaghilev was convinced, and So the Russian Ballet was
born to Western Europe'.
Diaghilev was rarely convinced
in this way. His friends would come to him with an excit-
ing new idea and he would listen to them with a lazy and
indifferent expression, his eyes half closed, and gsually
rote
fe eal
(when the idea was/a fruitful one) show/no reaction at
all.
Then, it might be a few hours ar a few days later,
he would return to them ablaze with projects based on
having
their idea, jtransformi
it in such a way
Dinghilev sinply
that it (seemed/ no longer, to be their own. L He wasmnot
the one to show immediate enthusiasm, largely because,
Rin if the new idea did germinate, his mind was fully occupied
andgave
ho Timé lo absorbing it, behind his 'mask', A He did see in Nijinsky
denontrala a dancer with whom he could astonish Paris, and/said as
teelingp eike much to Gabriel Astruc when they were paanning his first
apefona
ballet season.
But (according to Astruc) Diaghilev had
told the French critic Robert Brussel logogen
when Les
he intended to take
1906, h that
were
ballet to Paris one day. Alexandre Benois too claimed
Aip.
Moscow
was
to have started the ballet-idea, and perhaps his E the
fogettu
justest claim of all, for af all Diaghilev's intimates
most
he had done AOEe to stimulate his interest in ballet +he art.
In 1907 Teliakowsky had entrusted
settugs L
libretta 9 He
Authe
/ ballet Le Pavillon d'Armide to E, I
Benois)had fouryen ago
suggested
The
and
Thesphile
the)storp),
Gaurier
costum
HO LS, with Michel Fokine in charge of
i had koes
the choreography, and
produced in November
of that year. at the Marynsky theatre, the music by
Nicholas Tcherepnine. It was a great success, and
after the première Diaghilev pushed through the crowd


backstage towards Benois and said, 'We must take this
to Europe!'
Diaghilev had another habit, which was to play down
a new idea in order to hear what other people had to say
in its favour.
When he was talking to Gabriel Astruc
in 1908 he first of all extolled Russian dancing, esp-
ecially 'our Vaslav' or Nijinsky (whom he had not yet
met), together with Maestro Cecchetti and Michel Fokine,
then, when Astruc's enthusiasm was aroused, told him that
Paris would never come to see 'whole evenings of ballet'.
Behind this too was a certain canny relutcance to over-
burden his listener with ardour <-the kind of retgraint
that every impresario must have if he wants to attract
money.
Quite rightly Astruc had the impression that
it was he himself who persuaded Diaghulev.
But it is doubtful whether, even when he was planning
to export ballet, Diaghilev was fully convinced that it
would ever be more than an accompanying entertainment l6
HitH the opera.
Most likely he could not yet visualise
running a ballet company full-time, or putting on an
exclusively ballet season.
As much as anything else,
circumstances encouraged him that way.
Ballet was simply
not taken seriously at this time, despite the energies
and fortunes spent on it in Ryssia.
Even there it was
not 'serious' like opera, and the music for it was not
masot 'serious' like congert music, despite Glinka's
dances in Russlan, which had inspired Tcahikowsky to
write his scorned and unsuacessful ballet Le Lac des
Cygnes in the Eighties.
In Paris, certainly, there
was no serious musical public avialable for ballet.
In Russia there had been changes. Tchaikowsky's
Sleeping Princess had been a triumph in its first
performance before Tsar Alexander 111 at the Marie
theatre in St Petersburg in December 1889. There was
now the 'new' choreography of Fokine, and young dancers
who seemed born to fit these new movemnets had come
into being.
But still ballet was definitely 'inferior'
to opera.


In Paris the ballet tradition had degenerated
completely, and while there were hordes of bad female
wese
dancers there was hardly any male ones at all.
Male
dancing was, on the whole, regarded as rather shameful.
It was customary for each of the girls to be the mistress
of one of the rich permanent ticket-holders at the Opéra,
whi liked their dancers plump.
The result was more a
floor-show than ballet.
There was thus a chance for
Diaghilev to show not only the finest dancers in the
world but the possibilities of the male dancer for the
first time. Even in Russia the premier danseur
tended to be little more than an elegant porter for the
ballerina, and stood back so that she could be seen in
all her grace.
Clearly the whole concept of a 'ballet' had to
be altered So that serious talents could be mobilised
from every quarter.
It was impossible to leave the
story to the ballet-master any longer.
The old ballets
kad teen
tatintet uncoordinated as between music, sets,
costumes, plot and dancing.
Painters, whose work
brought them into contact with past epochs and styles,
were clearly the best people to consult not only in
the matter of costumes but the historical authenticity
of a grouping or a step too. Yet in the old days no
such consultation took place. A ballet had been con-
demned to be decorative---and even then insufficiently
so---because writers, painters and musicians did not
get together with the ballet-master before he worked
out his choreographic approach.
This collaboration
was precisely what distinguished the Diaghilev Ballet
from that which went before,
V mas this
ilahoration
and
endowed ballet with 'seriousness' for the first
time.


Benois' Pavillon d'Armide might well have been
mounted for the Opéra in 1908 had not Boris already
been under way.
Behind its first production in St
Petersburg in 1907 there had been quite a story. The
composer Tcherepnine (Benois' nephew by marriage) went
to Paris that year to produce Rimsky-Korsakov's Snow
Maiden at the Opéra Comique, and told Benois when they
met that his Pavillon was at last going to be performed
in St Petersburg.
For four years Benois had been hoping
to see it on the stage, but Teliakowsky had always stood
in the way, for Benois had reviewed some of his product-
ions rather badly, finding them 'amateurish and flippant'.


itouglr
He et that Teliakowsky EE a dilletante,
his wife
Teliakowys
a precious aesthete. True, le had sponsored the artists
Korovin and:Golovin but 'had neither the taste nor the
- intelligence' to draw the best out Rethen them. Now Fokine
at Tcherepnin's suggestion had chosen/for the Maryksky
repertoire.
Benois returend to Russia and found that he
was required to reduce the 'thregacts to one.
Also, to-
wards the end of their preparations Fokine asked him to
write in a new part for the young Nijinsky, at that time
'a modest, shy, timid youth', small and sturdy and totally
unaristocratic in appearance, 'more like a factory-worker
than a demi-god'.
Acoording to Benois (who also called
raltas
Diaghilev/unimaginative and poor in ideas))Wijinsky was
not then remarkable even as a dancer.
His leap was un-
usually fine but more of an acrobatic feat than the kind
Ontenks
of elevation that sent a shiver down your spine.2 Kar-
Rand,
savina, HwaS still a pupil when she saw Nijinsky
leap in class---it was some months before he passed out
Mrchael of school
She was So struck OFE EE that she asked
Orouchov his teacher) why no one had yet heard of him.
As for
Nijinsky himself, he seemed utterly unconscious of what
certails
he had done. He was
and Obouchov was always
L 'ungainlyy
calling him 'fly-catcher' because he breathed through his clas
obedienlts
mouth. Benois/wrote in the part of Armida's favourite
slave', , which allowed Nijinsky to stay by the prima ball-
erina (to be Kshesinskaya) and support her when necess-
ary. Meanwhile the winds of intrigue were blowing in
high quarters. Kshessinskaya suddenly withdrew from
her part, and war
aed
a Anna
without
L Les,
cen
Pavloval Then,
any prior warning, the
management brought the date of the first night forward,
making a flop all but inevitable.
It seemed that
Kshesinskaya had jumped clear of a trap just in time.
Benois decided on drastic action and called up Bakst's
notorious journalist brother Isiah Rosenberg, to put a
story in the local gazette.
Rosenberg asked him to
write it himself, which he did, and it appeared next
day.
The bad publicity worked.
The first night was


Jeem 7 necensas ac 9
Brils opart from it astinré desiralilg :
put back a week and two dress rehearsals were allotted.
lu cesisTaut
Teliakowsky himself---not)Krupensky, who had been pointed-
ly rude to Benois-- --came down to rehearsals and was as
pointedly polite. IV wan affain like tti made a Paris seoso
l6 Russia
On his return
the Boris production F
from, -
Diaghmlev set about preapring RF a joint opera and
ballet season on the lines that Astruc had suggested to
the Grand Duchess Maria Pavolvna. There were daily meetings
at his new apartment in Zamiatin Perehok near the Horse
Guards Barracks.
Its ground-floor rooms gave on to the
street, sh
the Dach Clooking into a courtyard.
wit
at Ha tack
Hea the servants' quartersk The grand piano and the
paintings he had bought abroad were still there, but'the Italiau
Tmobaal chairs in the dining roon had gone.
The intimates
of the World of An/Floined him again---Bakst, Walter
toykov,
-Dolgorenkov Nouvel and Benois.
Prince V.N.Argutinskj-Dolgo E
a secretary at: the Russian embassy in Paris, also came
Re lalir
ut a
time ) .
helr/Diaghilev crucially
The pre was the composer Tcherepnine, who
also conducted ballet at the Maryasky, and the ballet
critic Valerien Svetlov, with St Petersburg'aanoug au-
aiso
Ronotarg
Endrity_Dn.balletsja state councillor and/general,
Nicolas Mikhailovitch Bezobrazov) kindly, white-haired
host
and at this stage alnecessary guardian angel. During Itase
preparations Diaghilev met Serge/Grigoriev, at that
wRo
Leonidovitzl
time Fokine's regisseur.
Egorushka' jwas to remain
until ki
with tith him) th
ears
death, was
barep?
rather dour
unimaginative but,
nanagement of tiTe stare and company
l all the
punctilious and dependeble
te the style of
last curtain-call and the
rouble spent on a metre
of ribbon.
He had seen Diaghilev eight years before,
and was now most excited to be invited into the Tenr lim's den.
When he called
me E he was ushered
in by a man with 'a little beard' (possibly -
whe
a said that Diaghilev would like him to wait.
This
Gajmierf
gave)tin a chance to 'calm down'. Then Diaghilev
came and they shook hands.
He Askea Grigoriev to sit


down, EE said that Fokine had recommended him as a
regisseur. They agreed on a salary, and Diaghilev ex-
plained that his first duty would be to sign be con-
tracts with the artists. And he gave Grigoriev a curious
smile, with his mouth alone, while the rest of his face
remained serious.
Grigoriev left the apartment feeling
indead
that his life had been changed, asjit had. And he felt
happy.
In all the twenty years he spent with Diaghil-
ev he never really became his intimate friend, though Re
speut
withhin even
A more * the time than anz of a fa
brautk:
Cyril Beaumont, from what he saw
of the Diaghilev productions backstage from 1911 onwards,
tkau,
did.
felt that no man could have served Diaghilev
Gngmnev
betterk
enICT was tall, spare and darki - with a pale face
and sad eyes. He seemed responsible for every detail
of a production, short of actually composing the music
each
and the steps. He watched every rehearsal and knew
He riniesv at once if le movement had been done badly or missed out.
He looked at all the costumes, was present at the lighting
rehearsals, and procured extra lighting if it was necess-
ary. He knew the music cues for the risé and fain of
the curtain, and the cues for:each' dancer's entrance.
He could at once tell if a scene was set wrmgly. He
arranged for the trasnport of the company -and the pack-
ing of its enormous équipment, and he arranged for
scenery to be stored if thetwere not required for the
next tour. He drew up the programmes together with
Diaghilev, and decided who the understudies were to be.
He was responsible for notifying the company about
times of. rehearsals and cancellations.
His word was
the final one when it came to the question of whether
a costume needed repair. He was backstage well in
advance of a performance.
And he was never without his
little notebook, which listed all the tasks ahead.-
erttus wve
anduhese were neatly ticked off then dealt with.
He was Hiwella in the prompt corner during a performance, -
Sonetnes,
Untessi confident that everything would go well, he
slipped behind the backcloth and into the auditorium,


to watch from there. At the end of a performance he
had
would call out the names of all those dancers who/muffed
a step or forgot%a pose, and one by one he reprimanded
them or book/them for a fine.
Among his 'unusual qualities
for a Russian' Cyril Beaumont cites his punctuality,
and his concern for the performance above everything personal.
As if all this was not enough he sometimes touk part in the
performances, eanelHe played Shahriar/in Schénérazade (king of
India and China) , a merchant in Petrouchka and a father
in La Boutique Fantasque (in the first production of this
ballet at the Alhambra theatre in London, June 5 1919).
Diaghilev, with his intuitive penetration of other people,
had every reason to smile at their first meeting!
From that time Grigoriev attended. the meetings. in
Diaghilev's apartment, where they.all sat: round.the dining
table with his valet Vaspili passing round the roomz fillis
the tea-glasses (now that Diaghilev's nurse was dead).
There would be biscuits and jam on the table, and plates
of Russian sweets.
As in a ministerial conference-room
lay
while
there a a sheet of paper and a pencil/before each memhe 2 the
Commuttee,
percon
Diaghilev sat at the head of the table with
a large exercise book. He and Gabriel Astruc had agreed
on ballet and opera for alternate nights at the Théâtre
Sarah Bernhardt, the season to open in May 1909. Only
Le Pavillon d'Armide was definitely fixed, among the
ballets.
Diaghilev had played with the idea of Sylvia,
his production of whine had fallen through during his
Prince
battle with/Wolkonsky. Giselle too had been a possibility.
Now the committee veered towards Chopiniana which Fokine
had devised after finding a suite of that name, consisting
four
Folziie
Chopin pieces orchestrated by Glazunov. Feyhad
added to these pieces a Chopin waltz, which Glazunov also
trellec
orchestrated. The Pieee had been given Enst on March 8
later
anotter
1908, and was/danced in E 1 cend version, a purely classical
pas de deux based on the waltz, with the danseuse in a
long dress à la Taglioni, in examination performances at
the Imperial School in the same year.
Diaghilev wanted
to use this piece but rename it Les Sylphides. Fokine


was reluctant
but agreed in the end. Also
Dighilev wanted someone other than Glazunov to do AT
h.p. or"chestration. =A week later Diaghilev began talking
about the ballet Une Nuit'd'Egypte, which had been produced
by Fokine at the.l Marynsky theatre earlier that year, on
Marcha. The music was by Anton Arensky.
Dta +
wanted to call it Cleopatra and to make certain alterat-
ions. On the musical side hewanted péeces by Rimsky-
Korsakov, Glazunov and Taneev to replace the original,
When he listed the excerpts from these composers' operas
and concert pieces it. sounded a hotchpotch indeed. Tie colwuitree
susp e
Ee yone looked asto abedi
This made Diaghilev smile,
and he went on, 'Then the end of the ballet is banal'. AE te
Uue
cudg
Nuild' Eayph
the High Priest substituted a harmless
sleeping potion.for the poisoned cup, and Berenice
(called Ta-hor in Diaghilev's version EA was advised by
him to take heart and instead of bewailing her lover
awaken Amoun.
'It must be changed.
The youth poisoned
by Cleopatra, instead of coming to life again, must be
killed for good, and his bride must sob over his lifeless
body as the curtain falls.
And since we have no music
for such a dramatic scene, I will ask our dear Nicolai
Nicolaievitch (Tcherepnine) to write this music for us'.
Tcherepnine was sitting there, and looked as A
Lohed suspnged
as everyone else.
Fokine was the first to remonstrate,
as well he might, since it meant an entirely new ballet.
'That doesn't matter', said Diaghilev, 'what I want tof
know is whether you like the idea'.
Everyone said yes.
'As for you, Lyovushka,' he said to Bakst, 'you will
have to paint us a lovely décor'.
Later ig Rea sat at the piano in the next room
and with Nouvel began playing the new pieces.
Grigorive
evei
had no idea he couldyplay, tho-piang, much less play bU
well.
Diaghilev bit his tongue all the time, especially
at the difficult parts / (Zongue- sheviag e
was.
his life-long habit, and denoted hard thought).
uld
Hit. Now and then he turned to Fokine and
explained something. Nouvel laughed as usual, and called


l04
the ballet 'a Russian salad'. But Diaghilev knew his
Saw
theatre, and/that calculatedly happy endings are also
messy ones.
In his version celopatra sleeps with the boy
Amoun, to the despair of his lover Ta-hor,and watches his
death-throes with fascination after she has given him the
poisoned cup.
The last moments of the ballet are when
Amoun is looking for her lover and finds him lying dead
before her.
wexe h
The committeethen discussed who the dancers should
It was clearly necessary, not to say politic, to
ask Kshesinskaya to join the company, but everyone--
particularly Fokine---knew that her style belonged to the
Petipa tradition rather than the one he himself was creat-
ing, with its greater reed
novenent and flexibiflity.
He told Diaghilev that as ballet master he did not need
her, but) was persuaded to take her for Le Pavillon d'Armide.
That was because it was not a strikingly new ballet,
which Les Sylphides was---heHee he declined to have her
in that.
He preferred Anna Pavlova, whose weaknesses
ty ralere
as a dancer in the traditional sense;for she Was/the opp-
be cane besitive
osite of the virtuesar Met St
NAr WETE ad-
vantages in what might be called post-Graham choreography.
She would clearly be ideal foe the part of Ta-hor. while
Fokine himself was to dance; the boy Amoun. towfor some
h b
time, since the 1907iproduction of r Le Pavillon, Léon
Bakst, He great womaniser, andToline had been rather loudly
secretive about 'an unknown woman of society'.
She was
no dancer, but Fokine was giving her dancing lessons.
She was a 'genius', and also 'unbelievably gealthy'.
She was ES unbelievably beautiful too, and loved to take
her clothes off, especially in public, much to the horror
of her family, who belonged to St Petersburg's Jewish
élite.
She was in love with the stage. Her name was
Ida Rubinstein Bak y
IC D
COR
re and now, for the production of Cleopatra,
she was brought like a soft, black, purring cat out of the
bag.
Fokine suggested her for the title part.
Only
the purist General Bezobrazov thought it was disgraceful


that anyone not a fully trained dancer should be allowed
in the company. The others saw the possibility of a
sensation, if she moved as superbly as Fokine said she
did. By this time Diaghilev had already seen her perform---
in a censored version of Oscar Wilde's Salome---and, in
Karsavina's words, he 'unhesitatingly defined the promise
of her remarkable countenance'.
It was still a gamble,
but all theatrical sensations are before they prove them-
selves.
Benois maintained that he persuaded Diaghilev to
adopt the Nuit d'Egypte idea.
He and Fokine were very
cloae after their work on Le Pavillon together.
Fokine
was fascinated by the ancient world, and had spent hours
studying vases and sarcophagi at the Hermitage.
his me
ew Without first talking
Also Benois worked on the new
Cleopatra story, and even suggested ideas for Bakst's mis-
en-scène.
And he was responsible for the brilliant
stroke of keeping Cleopatra and Amoun onstage for their
lovémaking, concealed by veils, H
A TeStS while
(Nijinsi
a slave-boy and a slave-girl performed a 'ritual dance'
ud Kasavin)) to celebrate the love of their mistress, with movements
Tazegentenis
hiddey
kost Me 2 etriels
which of great abandona L It suggested the, embraces F
maker
mosk
Like H
L of Diaghilev's collaborators, Benois
minimi Le Diaplilev',
was anxious to
part in any eaterprise.
The amalgamation of all their stories relegates Di
to a role almost impossible to define.
Where did his
ten?
imagination take charge Benois tries to answer the
question by saying that while being creative in nothing
particular, even the music he had been trained in,
Diaghilev was at the same time a thoroughly creative
individual.
Benois was convinced (unlike some of the
hone yte
Iot less generous witnesses) that/mobhi
fror the World of
prgich
and
Art to Les Spectacles Russes de Serge de Diaghilev would
came
have taken place unless Diaghilev had seized charge of c.
them. He had, indeed, what U a many---perhaps most---
of his collaborators lacked, a creative will', as Benois


calls it.
He 'would greedily snap up everything that
developed in the minds of his friends, evergthing in
which he sensed a germ of life, and he would rapturously
embrak on putting these ideas, which were not his own,
into effect'.
Te iE
TUSICIATS and
IOTE
eoprapbon
uId
en a TAT ACLI
also
top - of hat Diaghilev wasy' a great enchanter, a real
charmeur.
If he wanted something.. ..it was almost
impossible to resist the pressure he exerted, often
very endearingly...The success of such pressures wes
based on his amazing intuition, on an extraordinagy
perception not only of people's external peculiarities
and weaknesses but also of their concealed thoughts,
tastes, desires and dreams, which he seemed to guess'.
ar Gabriel Astruc had calculated that the
opera-ballet season would cost about 265,000 francs, of
which he himself would take 50,000, that is about twenty
percent, apart from his slice of the box office (which
Diaghilev persuaded him to reduce from : his usual five
percent to two-and-a-half). As a fee,that was not
steep for a man who knew how to fill the stalls of H
Parisian theatres/with the best society and the loveliest
women, and prepare for the approach of the fougnn com-
pany with newspaper articles by the best critics. For Ris fee
Astruc was SSO to administer the show, take charge of
the box office and publicity, and sponsor Diaghilev
generally.
It is not clear whether Astruc's estimate
of 265,000 francs referred to the running costs,
namely rent of the theatre and payment of the front-
wages
of-house staff, together with the eoat of the enture
while
Russian company, or included the production costs as well
performing
(rehearsals, settings and costumes, traasport).
For Diaghilev was to take fipnanicial responsibility
for the whole season,and pay himself back out of the
entrely
box office, which was to
his after Astruc's percent-
been dede aclcol.
bey
had
age
Astruc estimated that each
performance would Vrig into the box office 20,000 francs,
and there were to be sixteen performances in all.


Gross takings for the season would thus be in the
region of 320,000 francs.
The runnings costs together
with Astruc's percentage of the box office would, when
deducted, leave Diaghilev with about the same fee as
Astruc was asking on his side, 50,000 francs.
It was
clear, at this stage, that all the backing would have
to come from Russia, while in Paris there would be guar-
antors who Saw to it that the Diaghilev company did not
come out at a loss.
It is usual for a theatre to guar-
antee an incoming company up to a certain percentage of
the box office, say 65% or 70%, unless there is a straight
renting deal and the sole impresario is the incoming
company.The possiblepatronbiaghilev named to Astruc at
first were Princess Murat, a lady called de Ganay,
the Comtesse de Chevigné, Comtesse de Pourtalès, Comtesse
de Hohenfelsen, Princesse de Polignac, Grand Duc Cyrille,
Comtesse Jean de Castellane, and Baron de Rothschild.
Astruc
The.guarantors found by A were Isaac de Camondo, André
Max Lym
Benac, Henri Deutsche, Henri de Rothschild, Basil Zahar-
off, Arthur Raffadlvitch, and the Russian expatriate
Nicolai de Bérnadaky.
This time it looked as if Diaghilev was to get the
was
Tsar's blessing.
A subsidy of 100,000 roubles hadbeea
Apnised to the Grand Duke Vladimir.
There was also a
who was
private sponsor, the chief of a rubber
6 su
factory,yjanxious
Prackgr
to get a patent nobility through the Grand Duke. Dia-
ghilev was alsa to be given the Hermitage theatre, next
door to the Winter Palace for his rehearsals, and no
doubt the payment of the artists and musicians would
not be written into the company's production-costs, E Haris
reduce the promised subsidy in any way.
Diaghilev recruited fifty-five dancers in
wom pllimscos fron
twenty-five women from St Petersburg and five/(includ-
ing Vera Karalli and the sisters Sophie and Ofga
Feodorova), seventeen men from St Petersburg and eight
from Moscow (to include Mikhail Mordkine). Nijinsky,
who was nineteen, and Karsavina, who was twenty-one,
were to complement each other as the fledgling stars.


The orchestra too was to be from Moscow, under its
conductor Emile Cooper. As for the singers, apart
from the now firmly established Chaliapine, there were
to be some of the best-known Russians of the time-- -
Lipkovskaya, Sharonov, Zaporozhetz, Damaev, Petrenko,
Smirnov, Kastorsky, Davidov.


Diaghlev Before his departure for Moscow to sign up his dancers
e/met Stravinsky, whowas still a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov.
Twolyears before, the composer had finished a symphony and
dedicated it to his teacher, who arranged with the Court orch-
estra to have Eue performed at a private audition (1907).
Rimsky-Korsakov wasy a dying man at that time.
last
withhin Stravinsky, whom the composer liked and admired,
told him about his newest piece, Feu d'Artifice, an 'orchet-
ral fantasy'.
Both this and the Scherzo Fantastique were
performed at the Ziloti concerts (Alexander Ziloti both
sponsored and conducted ame). That was on 6 February
1909, and Diaghilev was present.
The wh
Car
Yav wky? musical career was determined by the fact that
caplivalzd
Diagfilev was atonel
by what he heard. They
became friends AT Temained SU
years
and Diaghilev asked him to
orchestrate two pieces by Chopin for Les Sylphides, the
Nocturne and the Valse Brillante, namely the beginning and
end of the ballet.
Stravinsky found -
working with
this great personality' BE different from anything Be
rattar
he had experienced.
It was eu
terrifying, in fact.
When they disagreed it meant
E an adyous
and exhausting' struggle: Pre
Diaghilev's passionate
wese
Such
ble endurance and tenacity L a force of will se wer
emanated from 1
that it was difficulthot to accedeljwittaut
myto everything he wanted.
But it was reassuring
mlol
becaus
know that something A borpbls
emeige from
the disagreement. A
The harder Diaghilev
fought, the safer the end-product began to look.
av thi
aljo
Diaghilev/met Nijinsky though he had hme
seen him dance at the Marynsky,= I VIl e
had - ter
numbe
eypeuillas
- the boy's sponsor was the great Kshesinskaya. Nhginskis
debut had been on 29 April 1907 at a graduation crememony,
in a dance with Ludmilla Schollar, which the critics--
including Svetlov---had praised.
Kshesinskaya took him
out to Krasnoe Selo for special performances, and his name
was beginning to grow in ballet circles throughout Russia.


It seems clear that Nijinsky was introduced to Diaghilev
through homosexual circles, probably at the fashionable
St Petersburg restaurant Cubat.
The previous year
had been 'chaperoned' by Prince Pavel Dmitrievitch Lvov, a good-1 lodkiy
the mang V
thirty at thattime, andseod-luoking, with blue
eyes and a monocle.
trtree
bought
a piang, and helped fus
for
snaler. Bronia ' dancing
family financially, and even saved me
/career when
payiip
e she had a poisoned footA Both Bronia and Romola, Nijinsky's
Nijuds
a almer C
wife, held that ty was not a homosexual but simply a rather
easly
helpless, ber
Walter Nouvel considered that in those/years
kim,
sex meant nothing to A boy and that he was quite un-
developed. e
dates
According to Nijinsky's 1918 diary Prince Lvov
introduced him to Count Tishkievitch, implying that he too
became a 'chaperone'.
But here ton Bronia diaagrees: the
count had four children, and did not seem that type. But
clearly here was something 1II LL insky's accountof how
d meet inp i
Diaghilev was
M TI thirty-seven, Nijinsky eighteen. Years later Nijinsky
Hhe
(tauge
told his wife, 'Among all the people I have ever known,
langung: is
Diaghilev, of course, meant the most to me. He was a
supiciouds
genius, the greatest organiser, discoverer, and developer
Ronelesge)
of talents,with the soul of an artist and a grand seigneur,
the only man with universal talent that I could compare
to Leonardo da Vinci'.
Diaghilev took him to risit Ae fomer)
painters, to the Hermitage
arrd to private collect-
L - a
saleef
istic
Rcmuects
ions. He began that process of
with fka tta
echinalion
ardentignduenting
JRY
which his sexuality was bound up. His domination over a a Ven t
fridge wo
boy, once it had been broached sexually, was so alluring
witt
winterlarel),
and intoxicating, and so mixed/dinner-dates in fabulous
aud
0i ungamilar
places/with art and soundjudgenen and) Tew ideas and
social
the most suavely authoritative behaviour, that the matter
Hetry'
of/not sharing his homosexual tastes---of being unaware
of the perverted fantasieswhich secretly darkened PtS Diaghlw!
mind--- -seemed unimportant.
Diaghilev was the great world.
Only in mid-Atlantic, with Diaghilev safely land-locked in


Italy, did Nijinsky recover his real sexual tastes.
hi mamiape
To Diaghilev thetwas utterly incomprehensible---an
outrageous betrayal- and
tomai, of
etures) D
simply because those sexual tastes were incomprehensible
to him, and a tetrayalg te 'Righo'loue theg Rad shared
When Stravinsky saw them together A
he was struck by Nijinsky's reticence,
which e aed duet
a tact
undeveloped intelligence, and by the tae F e way Dia-
fiehu mauopedrasery
ghilev,always said something to gloss over the boy's
lack of distinction comparedwith his perform-
ance on stage. Everyone recognised Nijinsky's gifts;
few saw the future great dancer (for re Simpte
a son
a it was Diaghilev who
anE carefully elicited
the greatness.
It seemed impossible, according to even
Nijtnky
his partner Karsavina, that Le could ever achieve 'the
kind of male perfection, the poised conventionality,
the comeliness combined with vtrility, that was the acc-
epted ideal'.
It took Diaghilev to show him to himself,
with that 'uncanny clear conception' of his. The
exotic, mysterious, feline Nijinsky was dormant behind
this ungainly one, and Diaghilev tapped his personality
consatinually until he found it. Even then the :did not
find it ready-made.
He found.possibilities---the only
ones he could profitably exploits And he developed
these with concealed and patient technique. -


He changed the lives of all his associates.
was an hour late for his 'ceremonial visit' to Tamara
Karsavina at her St Petersburg apartment to sign her up,
and during the hour she waited she began to consdier
how her provincial-looking rooms, and her immature
person,' would look to the great 'aesthete'.
She was
unaware then of his famous unpunctuality, 'amazing
even from a Russian point of view'.
Her maid caused
iing
her to blush a2 she mispronounc cea his name when fianlly
he showed up.
'A meeting to discuss various artistic
questions kept me late,' he explained.
He had just
come back from Moscow and told her with some satisfaction
that the Grand Duke Vladmir was their patron, and a
subsidy had been arranged for them.
'By the way',
he said as he was going, 'I shall send you your contract
signed tonight.
Or is it Monday today---unlucky day,
when
I shall do it tomorrow.'
After he had Borf she felt
both intimidated and fascinated: at any rate, more
deeply involved than she had ever been before.
hmotingr-batint Chosenforthefirst seasonwas the
Potovtsian Dances from the opera Prince Igor, sinceit
voute aet be Possr +
Tad
entire
aghitev hadwantert.
These dances were the
t or of the rst Russian-season, LE 140t BOLM
re lead and
a who LI
Rehearsals started at the Hermitage theatre.
Court flunkeys brought round cups of chocolate.
The dancers were taken to the theatre in carriages
as if the production was for one of the imperial
theatres.
Then everything went wrong.


'Donnez-moi du Bleu Jambon'
The Grand Duke Vladimir died on February 22 1909,
and with that the imperial subsldy/disappeared. Alone
his death might not have done more than diminish the
promised 100,000 roubles, but Mathilde Kshesinskaya was
disappointed in Diaghilev.
Finding herself in a key
howtha
position now---his chief sponsor at
let him
ke giun
courtz--she
down precisely as she felt he had
let her down
not
J2e
wus
d ead
giving her sufficient roles in Paris.
It was tit for
tat. She even said so in her book, Dancing in St Peters-
burg, which she published in 1960.
Some time before,
she had learned that her only part was to that of Armida,
desest Diaghiileu'
and began threatening to leave the company.gu Now she
felt she could no longer 'intercede on Blaghile
behalf!
She asked at court that her requests for a subsidy should
not be followed up, and 'all Diaghilev's efforts to ob-
tain that subsidy by other means failed'.
Pavel Gerdt,
principal male dancer at the Marynsky, also.pulled out.
Fokine went into a rage, while Diaghilev kept his head,
though he did bang his fist on the table when he read
out the Imperial Secretary's letter cancelling the sub-
sidy to his committee.
And he returned to Paris at
once.
He told Astruc that the Russian season could only
take place if it was backed at the Paris end, though he kimserg
could lay his hands on 50,000 roubles (the rubber magnate?).
PAt this stage he did not know ente whom the cost of the
settings and scenery would fall, but it seemed likely


its
that the imperial court would withdraw theif earlier offer
to pay for both. The Countess Greffuhle and Misia Edwardes,
Diagiiles
to whom iepoured out everything on his arrival in Paris,
worked hard for him, and Astruc was able to muster up another
50,000 roubles from his sponsors in the form of a guarantee
to be picked up by Diaghilev only if box office receipts
averaged less than 25,000 francs a performance as against
the earlier expected 20,000 francs. The sums guaranteed
by each sponsor were a 'full share' of 10,000 francs (pro-
03300 franes
mised by Basil Zaharov) or a 'half-share X (Henri de Roth-
schild, Nicolai de Bérnardaky and Max Lyon).
At the same
time Diaghilev's bank account in St Petersburg was guarant-
Prince
eed to a certain sum byla-friend. He returned to Russia
Argultinsdy
in excellent spirits, worried though he must have been
Jolgotenkov.
(tor the Tsar had every power to withhold singers and dancers
from him:
and he arrived back in his committee room
looking 'very spry and animated', according to Grigoriev.
In view of the reduced budget only one opera could now be
given in its entirety, and that was Rimsky-Korsakov's
Pskovitianka (renamed Ivan the Terrible). One act from
Prince Igor was to be given, and one act from Russlan and
Ludmilla.
ae a a A ee
gor na nsisted
pine
Danees from
eac
be the greatest sensation
ArT season)
Each
of the two opera-acts was to be given on alternate nights,
followed by two ballets.
There was a little row between
Diaghilev and Walter Nouvel, who was up to his usual game
of pouring cold water---he said that since the operas could
not be given, and since Paris would nophongwal)interonted
in the ballet, the whole venture should be given up. Dia-
ghilev told him. angrily that he had signed too many cont-
racts for this to be possible---in St Petersburg, Moscow
and Paris.
And if Nouvel was dissatisfied, perhaps he
could raise the money himself and make a full opera season
possible?
The rest of the committee supported Diaghilev.
The imperial court did withdraw permission to use te


Marynsky costumes and settings.
Diaghilev cabled Astruc
to ask whether the Opéra would consider selling him back
the Boris production, in which case he would have a full
operawith most of the expenses already paid.
Astruc
replied that the Opéra would not.
'Try hiring', wired
Diaghilev.
But again the answer was no. So there was
no alternative to paking new costumes and new settings.
All of a sudden (in April) the court flunkeys)who
had formerly carried round tea and chocolate appeared
in the theatre to order the dancers out. Fokine went
into a rage.
Diaghilev kept his head and occupied him-
self at once by tearing round the city looking for new
premises.
In less than an hour he had found the Salle
Cathérine or the little 'Crooked Mirror' theatre on the
Ekaterinsky Canal, and his secretary Mavrin laid on a
whole convoy of carriages to take the company there in
groups of three and four, with the wardrobe women and
their huge baskets bringing up the rear. The dancers
found a buffet meal from a nearby restaurant waiting
for them in the first rest period. On the grand stair-
case there was a good portrait of Catherine11 which both
Diaghilev and Benois took to be of good omen, because of
her 'benign smile'.
After all, the Hermitage had been
hers too, and here she was greeting them greeting them
in their new place.
The rehearsals went on, and the Paris programme had
now been fixed as much by neeessity as choice.
The
ballets were to be Le Pavillon d'Armide (with Anna Pav-
cmsisling 2 lova as Armida), the Polovtsian Dances, a series of
Ruxnan dances
divertissements to music by Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikowsky, Musiogety,
avaugady
Glinka and Glazunov called Le Festinsj@leopatra, Hoen
andl
Petipa
Les Sylphides. The operas were to be Ivan the Terrible,
and single acts from Glinka's Russlan and Ludmilla and
Serov's Judith (with Chaliapine and Felia Litvin), with, once mme
Boris Godurov.
I Benois was to do the costumes and setting for Le Pavill-
on and Les Sylphides, while Roerich was to do the Pol-
ovtsian Dances. The setting for Le Festin was to be


Korovin's décor for the second act of Russlan and Ludmilla,
together with Golovin's designs for Ivan the Terrible.
Golovin and Jouon were to design Boris once again.
Fokine
had the desperate task of producing four ballets with his
own choreography (the fifth, Le Festin, being Petipa's work).
By far the greatest headache for him were the Polovtsian
Dances, the first ballet to be rehearsed in the new quarters.
Diaghilev had persuaded him to undertake it, but Fokine
felt he had made insufficient researches into the Polovtsi
tribe.whom he was supposed to represent choreographically.
All he had was Borodin's music.
And with this he created
something so wild, so full of what Benois called an 'orgiast-
ic madness' that careful research might easily have marred
Anna Pavlova had. -stepped into Kshesinskaya's place,
and seemed destined to be the star of Diaghilev's company.
At school she had seemed far too frail to become a prima
ballerina of top quality, especially as. she lacked compens-
ating technique, musical sense and rhythm.
Yet she had
a certain 'divine quality which everyone, including her
teacher Gerdt, noticed in face of the generàl preoccupat-
ion at that time with virtuoso effects. Accodring to
Karsavina, she took quantities of cod liver oil at school
to counteract her lack of stamina, and tried frantically
to ackieve acrobatic effects of which her body was simply
incapable.
It hurt Gerdt to watch her.
'Leave the
acrobatic effects to others,' he told her.
'It positive-
ly hurpts me to see the pressure such steps put on your
delicate instep.'
As late as 1929 Serge Lifar found that
she was going through 'monstrous, hardly believable exer-
cises'.
She would lean on the barre with one arm and on
him with the other while trying to get her balance, then,
on her points, she would let both go until she over-balanced.
Neither rhythm nor music meant anything to her, said
Lifar.
In fact, she simply ignored both, and would
nod to the conductor when she got to the end of
a figure. Ta the spectator it oftenlooked as if the
music heard was different from the music going on inside
her own brain.
She seemed to Lifar a quite unreceptive


person, though as a dancer adorable.
She passed early
into legend, and the fees she could command in America
later on made Diaghilev's pay look absurd.
In Giselle
or The Dying Swan she achieved something quite incompar-
as 0
able,Temd-meemed about to float into air and lose sub-
stance entirely.
Her act of dying made even ether fellow-
shg danci
dancers backstage feel that it was for the last time,
and shema saying goodbye.
Fet Diaghilev Mass perhaps
her mist astringent critic,
disliked certain of her
cheap effects, which he called her cabotinage. And he
preferred in the end, despite everything, Spessiva.
In an interview once he said of these two dancers that
they were 'two halves of an apple'---'but only the Spegsiva
half has been in the sun'.
He alse said on another OCC-
asion that Pavlova had never really been interested in art
as such, only virtuosity.
The repertoire for Paris had been more or less est-
ablished but Diaghilev kept changing his mind, mostly
without telling anyone else in the company. He even
wired Astruc that he had decided to do no opera after
all, but would put on three ballets per programme.
He had tried to get the Gand Duke Boris's patronage
but this had failed, though Boris listened to him sym-
dead
Rim
pathetically. The other grand dukes
and frackin March
Rad uritten
were/against,
one of them/wmote to the Tsar, 'Boris means to request
you not to restore your patronage, for that Diaghilev no
longer desires, but to allow him to cintinue to use the
Hermitage for rehearsals, and to borrow the décor and
costumes used in the Marynsky theatre for the season in
Paris.
We very much hope that you will not take the
bait, which, let me warn you, will be cast very clever-
ly...' He thought it was all 'an unsavoury business'.
Diaghilev was so aware of having enemies in St Petersburg
roomuch
that he feared Astruc might give himjpersonal publicity
in Paris, as part of his pre-production campaign, and € amad Rnin
that this might so incense authorities at home that the
whole enterprise would be broguht down at the last minute.
The day after he wired Astruc that thêre would be no
opera he sent another wire asking him if Geraldine Farrar


X ene eof mus he present orchestion) pit
cas 3 So small cu reglosted with
pine,
would sing Marguerite in Boito's Mefistofele, as this
would give a role to Chaliapine.
Nothing came of this,
and the repertoire remained as planned.
Meanwhile the
spirit of the company in its new quarters was even better
than before, and Benois felt that its 'happy atmosphere -
had much to do with the later success in Paris.
A long
Crooked
Mirot
table was carried into the)auditorium and placed at the
left of the orchestra stalls for the dancers' meals, and
Diaghilev would join them. 'We felt something was matur-
ing that would amaze the gorld', Benois said.
Their theatre in Paris was to be not the Sarah Bern-
hardt but the Chatelet, and Diaghilev had arranged with
Astruc on his last Paris trip that all the seats should
be re-upholstered, the stage teflogred, the proscenium
arch redecorated and a new carpet laid throughout the
auditorium. The Câhetlet at this time was an old
barracks of a theatre, accustomed to melodrama, and it had
to be put on the map again. All this was financed by
enshy,
Diaghilev, who sent an advance of 5000 roubles to the
suo
Paris firm in charge of the redecoration. The telegrams
itervi
saidit lookad
went to and fro.
He decided to add two acts to Judith.
nibe a lake
He expressed concern about Astruc's publicity in the
i Hout waler.
press and possible hostile' overtones.
Cables dealt
with insurance, authors' rights, the hiring of a work-
shop for painting scenery, the question of whether Lit-
vin snould sing for a rival management (he said no),
and indeed every' aspect of the production except the fact
that he was running out of money and had nowhere to go
for any more.
The company, including Nijinsky, and under the command
of General Bezobrazov, left for Paris on Mayk, the season
at the Marymsky theatre having ended the previous day.
Both Pavlova and Karsavina had other foreign tours to
complete before going to Paris.
Diaghilev left St
Petersburg the day after the others.
For most of them
Paris was an entirely new experience.
Unlike St Peters-
burg it was enjoying at this moment a warm spring.
The trees were in leaf.
Karsavina was all nerves, on


her journey from Prague.
She was young enough to believe
that Paris was a centre of 'dissipation and sin'.
She feared its elegance, as a centre of fashion too.
'I expected the streets to be like ballroom floors and
to be peopled exclusively with smart ladies, walking along
with a frou-frou of silk petticoats'.
When she was act-
ually walking through Paris Later a group of children
called after her---to say how beautiful she was! Paris
visilo
was a happy city: that was how it struck the foreie A
And its elation, especially in the spring, caught up every-
one in the company---except perhaps Diaghilev, who arrived
at the Gare du Nord (so he told Astruc who met him) with-
out a sou in his pocket.
An argument started.
He said
that Astruc would have to pay the company, as his money
had run out in pre-production costs.
Astruc said that
his was impossible since he could not draw on the sub-
scriptions of his backers, of on the advanced bookings.
Ini this case, Diaghilev said, . there will be no Russian
season.
Comtesse Greffuhle and Misia Edwardes gave a dinner
for the company at the Hotel Crillon a few days after
yearslaler
their arrival.
Misia told Serge Lifar/that her heart
had sunk when she saw all these 'drably provincial and
uncurtivated' people.
She began to regret having fallen
for all of Diaghilev's stories, under the sway of his anstocalic
so A ra
charm, whict
hat
restermaristocrat.
aud
frisgest
ABhe could foresee the
test asiaster of all time.
Not until a fortnight later, at the dress rehearsal,
did she change her ideas. rune.
A melodrama called Les Aventures de Gavroche, which
had a shipwreck in it, had just closed at the Chatelet,
now
and the alterations were going on noisily. Thia time
enough
Diaghilev had made sure to bring a large Ltechnical staff
with him SOS to avoid backstage trouble of the kind he
had had at the Opéra.
He had also brought along K.F.
Waltz, whe-was general manager at the Imperial theatres
and a Don Juan long past his sixties with a black wig
and dyed moustaches and a painted face and a way with the


girls which a man of thirty might have envied.
He was
always laughing and Fe had limitless energy. He devised
two fountains onstage with aater-jets the height of trees
for Le Pavillon, also an intricate arrangement of trap
in thelallet
doors for the quick changes,) when the tapestry depicting
ghe lovely Marquise Madeleine as Armida, surrounded by her
court, comes to life before the Vicomte de Beaugency. and
then when-dam-eemesthrangh ceturns wittr her Petinue
eet
her
zehind C show-the
tened Vieemte
ee been reality
Moscow
With hisjcarpenter from-HOSCor
modernised the
cântelet equipment (the theatre dated back to
Napoleon111).
He also spent half the night in expensive restaurants
with his girls, and one of his unofficial jobs was to
cheer Chalipine up during his fits of stagefright just
before curtain-rise. The Châtelet was well-placed for
the delights of life---the restaurant Zimmer was actually
same
were
part of thel building, and there WES a host of cafés and
smaller eating places all round.
Benois was there' - to
welcome the company, so happy to see them all again---
and to feel the excitement among them---that he spent
most of his time at the theatre instead of at Weber's in
wlare Re usually sak.
the Rue Royale, Among other things he noticed that
secreloty
fot
anal
Diaghilev's lover, Mavrin, had fallen i BVE with the
attractive 0lga Feodorova, and remembered Diaghilev cell
inghim one day that Olga was 'the only woman I could ever
fall in love with'. Diaghilev was probably too busy
superyising, the laying of the ruby-red carpet at the
Couple.
châtlet to keep his eyé on them ' ASTT
been
Astruc must have been alarmed at the money, or rather
the credit, being spent. He was if anything more excit-
able than Diaghalev, ant not at all the dour business man
his function in the Russian seasons might lead us to
expect.
He dreamed and planned, and talked about great
artistic revolutions, and he was a key-figure in the
enterprise, quite as essential as any meber of the Diaghil-
ev 'committee' and quite as much the victim of Diaghil-
Fis
ev's charm and/restless, unflagging pressure.


Some money came from Russia, and Astruc's friends
guaranteed the fest.
Diaghilev disliked the pit of
the theatre, and filled it with boxes. He removed
the five front rows of the stalls to make room for the
orchestra, now that he had built a forestage over the
old orchestra pit.
Armida's canopied couch required
quite a large trap-door. During rests the restaurant
Viel would send in roast fowls, pâtés, alads for picnic


Lmeals. The)
dancers sat on empty packing cases.
The company's
'figurehead', Bezobrazov 9 fussed and consoled.
Diaghilev would float into rehearsals in---the words are
Karsavina's---'an areopagus of satellites'.
He gave
no hint to anyone that box office receipts, even with
one-hundred-percent capacity houses throughout the
season, would not be enough even to pay the two compan-
hip: ies (opera and ballet). There was incredible chaos during
rehearsals.
The trap-door jammed.
Fokine was frantic
when the supers failed to walk in time with the music.
And the stage was virtually being built around them.
There was the sound of hammering and sawing all day,
and Fokine was almost hoarse.
With only two weeks 1o Jo,
* AS the lunch-break was cancelled.
Everyone had to eat in the theatre.
Painters, musicians,
critics and journalists and curious visitors were all
lile
after Diaghilev.
He rushed everywhere, ant some 6I
his French entourage---Jean Cocteau, Reynaldo Hahn,
Robert Brussel, J.L.Vaudoyer---supplied the Press with tittila
alnut
h the company's doings.
Cocteau td prepared an: illus-
trated brochure.
The first poster to go up on the walls
of Paris was for Les Sylphides, showing Pavlova in the
costume designed by Benois in the long-skirted Taglioni
style, though Pavlova was not to appear for a fortnight
after the opening. The gorgeous weather continued.
Open-air stalls and handcarts were heaped with flowers.
The advance booking was so good that on May 10 it was
announced in the Press that there would be extra perform-
ances.
Astruc Fad offered seats in the front rows of the
stalls to fifty-two of the most beautiful actresses in
Paris, and all fifty-two of them had accepted.
The
Russian season was clearly becoming the thing to know
about.
Diaghilev was atready hard at work Hhe von
ings on his 'whispering' publicity, at dinners and recept-
ions, for the Paris season was now on. Fokine had to direct
kis
Aeyin not only in an endless din from sot te stage and
the auditorium but in full view of Diaghilev's friends,
which he disliked intensely, though Diaghilev did detail
And Re frund time to liffr euey Callet. Ain
mo i du glaue jamlon W a re
grisl Donhey-
peatel do Syler thal W Gecalue attacbed - si naue


As Raravin id
Le chanty
Tcheorzals Dic sghilevi
turlulle good atu T
Stood ct iun shayp
ot La - I
gurls.
Grigoriev to stop them
TtA the dencers
Hork In one case at least Grigoriev failed.
There
was a furious row between Fokine and Robert Brussel,
had fe llen
ith
who mas
etings for Karsavina G (as Fekine
had once. done loo).
Vious- Fokine ordered him out of the theatre, and
Brussel went straight to Diaghilev and complained about
Diaghilev answered in his suavely ironical way, hat
always-made tarren
Fee
matt ee 'Evident-
ly those in charge of the rehearsal didn't realise that
Monsieur Brussel has special permission to distract the
dancers'. A Fokine was thin with his exertions, and Brussel
was not the only one fussing round the girls---Calvoc-
otessi was at it too. Thréedays before the dress rehears-
al the Moscow orchestra arrived, and orchestral rehears-
als began.
At that time a dress rehearsal was equival-
ent to an opening, in that the critics were present, and
evening dress was de rigueur.
The theatre column of
Le Figaro warned its readers that no one would be*admitt-
ed to the theatre after curtainrrise.
Astruc and Diagh-
ilev had invited the first-line theatre, art and-music
critics, various impresarios and managers of opera
houses (with an eye to future bookings), diplomats and, !
ministers of the French cabinet, playwrights and painters,
dancers and musicians, not to say the wealthy and the
noble.
The curtain was to rise at eight-thirty sharp.
Great excitement had been generated.
In such cases,
when-there- is to be a triumph, the excitement is a strange-
ly shared stàte, felt on both side of the proscenium
arch, as if performers and audience were simply complem-
entary to each other. And tis seemed h fe Rappening.
When the Comtesse de Noailles arrived in her box
on that night, slightly late, she felt that the excite-
Rerfriend
ment generated in her by/ethene might not be satisfied.
roo
But then she/was aware that a miracle was about to happen!
L sed
te action S
What). happened on the stage was likejan
raordinars
luxuriant plant responding to a perfect climate: fhe
red curtain rose on an entirely new experience which all
the exciting promises of the previous weeks had failed


even to suggest.
Rodin was there. So was Isadora
rat
Tiare
Duncan (appearing at this time at the/Gaieté Lyrique).
There were masses of flowers in the auditorium, brilliant
against the fresh ruby-red EoE of the seats and the
floor.
On that first night, or rather dress rehearsal,
Le Pavillon, the Polovtsian Dances and Le Festin were
given. Astruc had arranged his beauties of the dress
circle so that brunette alternated withbonde, and their
necks were ablaze with jewellery. Tcherepnine was to
conduct his own music for the opening ballet, Le Paviflon.
The opprttg chords'weré mysterious and soft. and as
tre
the interior of Armida's pavilion, W as sevealed
with the magic tapestry and a great clock, and columns
of marble. A special atmosphere was atpeady created. lufore the
Rad been danced.
formhere was Versailles of the merenteenti and eighteenth
thg
centurtes--- -at first sight a strange thingtn offer A to a
Parisian audience IH export from Russians. Yet perhaps,
despite the criticism it came in for, there was something
exquisitely tactful about the choige. The tact lay
most in the delay given to the shock of seeing Russian
dancing for the first time.
In this way the eye was
Speclacle
gradually accustomed to the kind of daening no one in
Paris had seen before, where a solo did not finish in a
set way, where the corps de ballet did not always have
turnad
wikk
smiling faces/towards the audience but melted intlt the
action, where a ballerina could stop suddenly on her
points, or run off, where there were no virtuoso steps
for their own sake, where the music was so followed as
Confitamn t
to seem a_part of the figures.
At the beginning of Le
Pavillon there is no dancing, but even the miming here, In
under Fokine's arrangementp, was a departure from the
set signs of Petipa miming, and closer to real acting. And
fhe audience was bewildered almost by the sight of class-
ical dancing that could be a marvellous gesture towards
music on the one hand and an evocation of real meaning
on the other, executed with a flawless vigour that
seemed barely credible lo tte eye.


When the pavilion clock strikes midnight the Fwelve
Hours step down, girls dressed as boys, and begin the
(Karaeli)
KARALLI
first dance. of
After Armida/and her court
come to life from the tapestry there is a bright sunlit
scene, and the Vicomte de Beaugency is transformed into
(Motdkin) Armida's Rinaldo, and exchanges his night-clothes for
a costume from the time of Louis X1V.
Armida-was
dancedbKaralli, Rinaldofor
Horekin Courtiers
in green and pink appear, and Nubians with feather fans.
Armida leads her man to a dais from which they will watch
the divertisgement of dances-- valse noble, a bacchanale
and a humourous dance by six monsters! But it is the
pas de trois danced Ay Armidastwo 'Friends' (Karsavina
and Baldina) and her 'favourite slave' (Nijinsky) that
first stirs the audience to ETE
an awareness of te
Russian.) power# ta translating movement into something
Estatic
IS quite beyond the phy-
sical, and dazzles the eyes into disbelief of themselves. itueg.
amons
There was a first murmur aerost the audience as the
three dancers rose and fell and spinned together.
Karsavina it seemed that the 'quietly admiring' mood Gf in
tralpe
the audienee 'burst into enthusiasm' half-way through
their dance.
Whispers 'ran'.
The two girls were in
yellow and gold, Nijinsky in an eighteenth-century ballet
costume with lace ruffles and knee breeches, coloured
yellow and silver.
Then, instead of simply walking off
to reappear in his solo, Nijinsky decided to leap off,'
landing in the wings unseen by the audience, so that he
seemed---the miracle of the miraculous evening---to
'fldot up and vanish'.as if his one hundred and thirty
pounds were nothing (he lifted his partners with such
wep like
ease that they Scremert
AS straw dolls in his hands).
There was a storm of appaluse which stopped the orchestrag
From that point the evening worked up to a frenzy of
enthusiasm. In Nijinsky's variation that followed he
took great soft leaps across the stage, rising and
falling with an ecstatic ease.
During his bounds he


turned in the air, performing rapid entrechats. He
did double pirouettes in the air, landing on one foot,
moving diagonally, and finished with a triple pirouette.
Karsavina had seen her father do this in Pharoah's
Daughter at his farewell performance at the imperial
ballet; ate had explained to her that this was 'a most
difficult bit of dancing, and a touchstone for the male
dancer'.
Besides this almost fearful strength in Nijinsky, that


(made Kim 'shout
upwards on long limbs of steel', there was an aloofness
that seemed at the centre of his dancing personality tatgave
Ft ehang U et he whotmatmosphereof Le Pavillon)from-onyfrom-one smpt
iHas
a"secrecy, a mysterious apart-
seemed Yo
haue lain ness that) was
musictonr Karsavina's allegro
followed, nimble and swift-footed, her characteristically
W aitigin
the Ajc
reserved and yet slyly enticing smile in a moving com-
fo Rlin 1o bination with the carriage of her shoulders, that épaule-
awakenil ment which was half the beauty of her dancing.
Again
there was a burst of applause, and again the orchestra
was stopped.
Then Nijinski and Baldina joined her to
h b
finish the pas de trois. The last dance of the divertisge-
ment, the buffoons' dance, was the most difficult dance
Fokine ever composed, intricate and taken at a dizzy
dan C
speed, and Rosai, thezleader ofthe-dance and about the I
same age as Nijinsky, got the most frenzied-acclamation,
of the whole evening.
The fact that, in spite eof this,
Nijinsky later-got most of the publicity was neither an
accident nor the "calculated work of Diaghilev, but the
recognition among the Parisians of a curiously removed
personality, whjch seemed to deliberate on its movements
like the originator of movement itself, without other
connections to life. NimRi, His/leap was not simply - prowess.
It was done_with a certain modest concentration that-cancalle
all. Ses Le
made
n 0
ran te * st Jeffort.
- Fokine. always held afterwards that it was Rosan whom
TLe tutt
Hat no one
the audience appreciated most/ Bnt mer wan! F
fewk
feet
in the audience.
5ur
could, tell precisely which of the dancers
Alju iky f
had excelled, in such an unbelievable amalgam. Henri
be an eneny).
Ghéon wrote, 'To be just to the Russian troupe one ghould
avoid all personalities.
It possesses that supreme
quality of being one with the work it represents to the
point of seeming born of the music and melting into the
colours of the décor'.
The individual triumphs were,
stm Clespala
according, to Fokine, the bacchanale /with his own wife
blgps
Fokina and/Fedorova, (in Le Pvallon the dance of the
mottgal,
buffoons with Rosai and lasti yAdolf Bolm in the Pol-
Certanly) ovtsian dances.
most probable that Nijinsky.


er tau ure ho 3
development in the public eye was a relatively slow/one/
fend k Ihuik
especially as Diaghilev was still nurturing him. hen
agter
there
the fact that In a matter of days. durtng the peump
Ement of the Russian season Diaghilev had become
the lion of Parisian homosexual circles, and the boy Nijinsky
Thallolped,
was
was always close to
/ And there ig the
him.
fact that
arghry, h Rosai died soon after. Abovoali, the Nijinsky legend
Ariild He
was pre-dated by his widow, Romola, So that we now read
legeal
in that first Paris season the kind of personal acclamation
Topk
lales.
that did-not take placex When the audience crowded across
the stage in the interval after the Polovtsian Dances
quile
they stared at Karsavina as werh as Nijinsky as they
Egitufi
nexe
practised, just as later, when she joined the troupe,
tallet,
Pavlova became a great favourite with the audience too.
Many people in the audience had reserves about Le
Pavillon, tntthese mbe axaggeratedtoor They felt
Ombhale
that a transformed Théophile Gautier story" was the last
thing they ought to expect of a first Russian season.
They were no doubt looking for
'barbaric' splendour.
they associate
tussiar
As Marcel Prévost
wrote, 'The art of the dance has fallen into complete
decadence in our country, a sort of tradition of "any-
thing goes" having set itself up between artists and
public'.
Now Le Pavillon was not, in spite of dancing
that simply blinded the critical eye, sufficiently far
hadilion
removed from thisyas subject-matter.
In this case,
Diaghilev's choice of the Polovtsian Dancestwas masterly, K
Hwever Hav
how
Iphe curtainjrose on Golovin's setting that seemed to
dmme- shafed
glow gold in the. embers of the fires behind the B L 1 AT
hida
of tha Polovtsi tibe,
K tentsf with thé great sky beyond tipped with pink
clouds, and low, rather bleakly grey hills stretching
away by a broad, flat river, the whole canvas curving
round instead of edging into wings on either side.
Here was 'the heart of Russia', Ftswas half-opera,
half-ballet.
The girl attendants of Khontchakovna,
Soge
(the Pilovtsi Khan's daughter 1 sing to the low opening
music while others, led by Sophie Fedorova, dance.
Faeive Ra
Mal tturt Diaglulew L & doultiol li W ay 1
Hougl
augge
and Beu is
ias (60 lui ld'
Ihruph Bezo obmyov
stagiif
hu K Oer it


'Now the daylight dies' is sung by the Khan's daughter (ployadty
(Petrenko) as some prisoners file past on their way
back to camp from a day's labour.
She orders her attend-
ants to give them a drink, which they do, and the prison-
ers sing their thanks.
Night falls.
Prince Igor's son,
sung by Smirnov, enters, and he sings his love-aria, and
the duet with the Khan's daughter.
When they separate
Prince Igor himself enters (Cahronov) and grives over his
captivity among these Tartars. The Khan himself (Zaparojetz)
enters and offers to do anything for him that will make
his imprisonment more comfortayle.
The Russian replies
that he needs liberty alone.
The Tartar offers to give
himthis freedom if he promises never to make war on him
again, but this Prince Igor cannot promise.
The Khan
then orders on his tribesmen to dance for the prince.
They appear at once, fierce, their faces dark with mud,
their clothes mottled in bright colours, togethet while once
usmen
mere with theyattendants dancing as before with slow,
swayifng movements, their arms rippling, their hips tolling
moving voluptuously, their veils writhing, as the men
begin their wild dance.
But now the drums begin pound-
ing and the Khan's warriors leap on to thé stage, brand-
ishing their spears to a giddy crescendo in the music,
arttes Came, and
heteze leaving as suddenly again thile boys take over
with wooden clappers on their hands which they strike
together as they dance, the music rising all the time,
until the warriors enter a second time for a dance
that for shere wildness, accompanied by the chorus now,
13 sends the-audience into a frenzy. Ad
HT m provided
aiclimax Inthe evenings lesson A what gunto-dancing
could be, as
corps-deballet showed A
tegral
Thel lallet
the action ( # had
the crutain rising and falling again.to deafening applause.
The audience almost tore up the orchestra rails. Emile
Cooper, the conductor, seemed about to leap over the
footlights while the audience jumped and shouted for
joy.
second
In theyinterval that followed crowds poured on to
Pedotova, a te chiog 7k yaug gurl Joahad busde A
Saphie
munic's frenehi
k Reuoi. Adoeg
Brtz
hytt Lun accrdig
up ub an Sx
anth
waippup er fellns -daucer
danced
feasfel
Abr a thas partd.
citemerl So wild LU Hos trke H.r pears n escl


the stage from evry side-door and pass-door so that it
was almost impossible for Karsavina and Nijinsky to
find room to practice their lifts for the next ballet.
'C'est elle!' people said as she tried to pass, 'He's
a prodigy!' when they recognised Nijinsky.
Theirs was
to be the third suite in the divertiseement, Le Festin,
a pas de deux called Firebird which had originally been
intended for Kshesinskaya.
This had nothing to do with
the later Firebird by Stravinsky.
Its feal title was
'The Blue Bird and the Enchanted Princess', and it was
frincess
from Tchaikowsky's Sleeping Beantz, choreographed by
Petipa.
It is now called 'The Golden Bird', 9 and was
repeated by Karsavina and Nijinsky in Vienna in 1913
under this title.
Diaghilev came to wish everyone godspeed for the
last item, and the audience drifted back.
Happily,
after the earlier frenzies---the divertissement required
no great concentration on the part of the audience,
and it came as a sort of light dessert.
It was taken
without pauses a
aTC - E es -Fokine
had forbidden curtain calls until the ends The scene
hadl
was Korovin's mediaeval banquetting hall which hel des-
igned for the first act of Russlan, and the costumes
wefe by Bakst, Benois, Korovin and Bilibine (who had
scoured the northern provinces of Russia for the Boris
costumes of the previous year).
Whether it was the
mood of the audience or the excitement of the dancers,
Fokine's orders were forgotten and bows were taken
after each dance.
Fokine left the theatre in a rage
and walked alone along the Rue de Rivoli 'Feeling
terribly hurt about the degradation of art' while the
success went on. on such a night bows were a small
crime indeed.
It was when, later in the season, the his
dancers tried to snatch bows in the middle of Cleop-
atra that he had cause for rager (though the audience
did refuse to stop clapping.
The little Firebird suite was another triumph.
Michael, the company's courier, described it afterwards:


'When these two came on, good Lord! I have never seen
such a public!
You would have thought their seats were
on fire!' Bakst had reversed the roles of the Petipa
arrangement and made Karsavina the Bird with bright ostrich
feathers and Nijinsky a frince, in a tunic of gold and
pearls and topaz.
Sophie Fedorova and Mordkine danced
a Czardas choreographed by Alexander Gorsky to music by
and
Glazunov,JSophie's sister 0lga, with Kremnev, led a Muss-
while
orgsky piece called 'The Fair at Sorochinsk' , and Rosai
had his second triumph of the evening with a solo to the
music of the jesters' dance from Tachgikowsky's Casse
Noisette.
Another Tchaikowsky piece, the March from
his second symphony, was the music for the finale.
'All was happy confusion' now,1 Karsavina saw
tried to staunch a wound in her arm caused by Nijinsky's
jewelled tunic.
Crowds streamed on to the stage again,
und
with Diaghilev pushing his way through Jcalling, 'Where is
she? I must embrace her! I as he came nearer. From that
Res aud Nijurki
day, Karsavina said, he always called,
daners 'my
children'.
In the excitement she heatd someone asking
Nijinsky if it was difficult to stay in the air as he did,
to which he replied, 'No, no, not difficult! You just
have to go up and stay there a little bit'. This
must have been said in Russian, as he spoke no French
at the time---anything he needed to say in that language
was usually translated for him by Nouvel, if Diaghilev
happened not to be around.
Vassily guarded the door
of his dressing room that evening, and he drove back
to the hotel alone, having alsed to be excused Diaghil-
ev's supper party.
The next day was a hot, marvellously clear day.
Diaghilev rose late, and breakfasted in bed, with the
blinds still drawn and the lights on, 'like', Romola
Nijinsky says, 'am old Marquise afraid of the daylight'.
edfhes
He would often conduct/business from bed, speaking on
several telephones at once, and reading all the telegrams


of congratulation. As for Nijinsky
was up and ready to Aet practising again, finding himself
named by Paris 'the god of the dance'.
He posed before
the Press cameras in his room---but had to be persuaded
to do so by Bakst and Diaghilev.
During
re principa dancers were
ognised wheverever they went,
and
et ML
A routine set in. Firts theprincipal dancers would
have a lessfon with Cecchetti at the Châtelet, followed
by rehearsals with Fokine.
A late lunch---at about
four o'clock. For Diaghilet and the 'inner cabinet'
this was usually at Larue's.
There would be Bakst,
Benois, perhaps Grigoriev and a Parigsian friend or
two---Brussel, Calvocoressi, Cocteau.
Then there
might be a drive in the Bois de Boulogne, followed by
a little sleep or some relaxation, before the exddus
to the theatre around half-past six.
Throughout the Russian season there was hardly a
cloud in the A
sky. 'June worked its gay witchcraft
over Paris', Karsavina says. On that first morning she
had woke# up to find herself 'La Karsavina' from now on.
It was 'like suddenly perceiving my double'.
There were
no reviews to read the next day. They would be coming
out of Ascension Thursday, that is the day after the first
public performance (May 19), though Le Fiagro carried an
article about the new splendours of the Châtelet theatre,
comparing the dress rehearsal to a fête at Versailles.
That night the audience was even more expectant than the
frie,
Last having been primed by talk.
The triumph was re-
peated, though there was one slight accident---Rosia
hurt his leg in the dance of the buffoons from Le Pav-
illon and had to miss his solo.
Luckily the critics


had seen him the evening before.
It was clear when the reviews came out that Paris
was most captivated by the 'barbaric splendour', the 'or-
nateness' and 'spontaneity of ae RusStE
EE ee
the Polovtsian Dances. Le Pavillon was praised too,
only with a suggestion that the Russians had trespassed
Trne,
(Rardly /
on a national preserve Versailles--whi
aetionals 3 as
s e
invariably handled wronglyand insipialy : as Benois
aohied
Fienil
SEN in the current production of Manon. at the Opéra Com-
stage
ique). But Robert de Montesquieu çanid Henri de Regnier
the poet, whowas' considered to have the'last word on - :
Versailles, approved. In Le Figaro Robert Brussel praised
theigirl he loved - arsav - ne as OTLOWS : 'Her beauty is
perfect, incomparable: substance" itself seems bewiddered
at being the adorable veil-of-so- much grace.'
Staen e 7
rates
The actual choreography was/glanced over.
There was a
hip.
lot of talk about Nijinsky in the following" days but
hsk k
relatively none at all about Fokine, whose inventions had
mention Ris beenrthe 'heart and soul of the Thete enterprise, as his
authloss a
tuthless #
companyls
tiveless Moge
isci
But critics, like audiences; have
derection
graini H
andtht les
see most
As the critic A. Warnod said, the Parisian
public had become used to 'a dinginess, a'-half light, a
vagueness, ,' and the malaise of twilight, as the stage's.
highest achievement, and Peliéas and Mélisande its
pinnacle; mustiness, melancholy, listlessness andaim
colour, delighted the most exacting... It is easy
enough to Kimagine, then, the impact on all this flabby
sweetness, these papier-mâché stage-props, of the sets
brought by the Russians! It was the décors that struck
spectators most, and the lighting.
Whenever the curtain
rose something dazzling or deceptively immense or flaming
with primary colours or enchanting like an Aubusson carpet
met the eye.
Visually Paris was educated enough. At
this time Cézanne, Gauguin, van Gogh, Seurat were being
talked about, and their 'children', the peo-impressionists,
Maurice Denis, Vuillard, Bonnard, Roussel, Cross, and


pointillistes like Signac.
But in the matter of chor-
eography there was little background.
That belonged to
the effete, so much so that a year later Abel Bonnard
wrote, 'Really, we no longer know what dancing is.
arehot savage enough.
As a community, we are too civ-
ilised, too polished, too prone to self-effacement. We
have lost the knowledge of how to express feeling with
the whole of our bodies; why, we are almost afraid to
let it transpite in our features, or in the wordswe utter,
So that all that remains is for it to seek refugé in
our eyes...' And Marcel Prévost said, 'I see indeed
that the 'Russian Season' in Paris is enjoying a brill-
iant success.
But to collect such a company in Paris
would be impossible.
It could not be put together in
any democratic country... A courtly pleasure, a royal
entertainment, let us reserve for the dance the welcome
Paris reserves for queens'. The two contradict each
other flatly. For the one, the Russians are visiting
barbarians, for the other a visiting court. Neither
hits on the idea (people in great metropolitan centres
seldom do) that they have been witnessing a different
type of civilisation, and even perhaps a superior one
to their own, and that it was precisely this Russian
Little
civilisation (which they knew not ing about) that had
produced the astonishing imaginative brilliance of the
ballets, the discipline and flawlessness of the dancing,
and thet remarkable spontaneity which is always the re-
sult, on the stage, of ruthless and highly deliberate and ho.
whichfor H ne self-doubting periodsmakessponts
Yontotraining.
aneity seemimpos
ev L - au
Thus
eso
h. b. Paris/missed the heart of the Russian enterprise,
namely that it had achieved something quite new for Russia
tself as well.
The 'brilliant success' was quite as
much of a surprise for Diaghilev, perhaps much more so.
It was this that persuaded him, almost certainly against
his tastes, to go into ballet-production as a permament
thing.
It was the ballet-part of the season that made
money, rather than the opera-part, despite Chaliapine


almost as much as
(who was paid moret that jthe rest of the opera company put
together).
Box office receipts are very eloquent for
managers.
And plans forahonde ballet season in 1910
were being discussed within days of the première.
But
even now Diaghilev was not aware, as his audiences were not
either, that he had created modern ballet---what we today
know as ballet, even to the point of its association with
homosexuality (for in earlier times the male dancer in-
variably offended the eye with an excessive, over-muscular
for
virility).
It took time/ afihe and his critics to
Atealie
uost
achieve that inter-communication which makes a/company's hew
V rakerf blace work understood/ CE takes theedge L
laler
s-newwork. In the/1910 season the critics even
began to notice the choreography.
Their eyes were being
trained to it, and they could more readily see the dis-
tinction between technique and perfection, and between
a considered move and a cheap trick. Their praise for
Les Sylphides in that season was qualified with detailed
criticism, though mostly because they were still hanker-
ing after the 'exotic' element they associated with the
uhil ttay
Russians and/had seen best characterised in the Prince
Igordances. Partly too the young Fokine had not yet
shown (fully the revolution in his work, though he did
feel that the Polovtsian Dances was one of tne most im-
portantpic of-his-torks for the exciting role it gave to
the corps de ballet, which hitherto had not been meant allowed
to evoke feelings or 'temperament' like the sologists, aly
but to supply EU background. The newness of the Diaghilev
ballet would take time to dawn on both sides of the
proscenium arch.
For the moment it seemed to be obscured
by a Petipa-type ballet like Le Pavillon and a 'romantic'
€ ballet like Les Sylphides.


Ty ure e cog
uyehur
followe
The company now began to enjoy itself.
The
whipet -
o m.
dancers looked at Paris for the first time, strolling
through the streets of the Latin Quarter or taking carr-
iages through the Bois de Boulogne. I A few led a social
Tives
-Karsavina escorted by Robert Bruspel, who covered
his carriage-seats with cushions from his apartment
whenerer she rode with him, Ida Rubfinstein by Montes-
quieu, whule Nijinsky continued under the vigilant eye
eye
(soon to become tyrannically possessive)/of Diaghilev.
A government party was given for the company at the
Quai d'Orsay, and dances from Le Festin were performed.
There were parties at Misia Edwarde's house and at Princess
Polignac's, and Diaghilev gave his own supper parties
at Larue or Viel.
Chaliapine appeared for the first time on May 25
in Ivan the Terrible, and on June 2 there was the dress re-
hearsal foe the second mixed opera-ballet programme,
with the first act of Russlan and Ludmilla, and Les
Sylphides and Cleopatra. Anna Pavlova had arrived
by this time, to dance in the mazurka and the waltz


of Les Sylphides, and/Ta-hor in Cleopatra. Of all the
ballets conceived, Les Sylphides is perhaps the most easy
to mat with the-smallest faults/in timing, just as the
slightest misuse of the arms may turn what should be a
flowing and harmonious movement into an ungainly kind of
Bensis
signalling motion.
The curtain rises on a Inight-scene,
with patches of moonlight on a tombstone, the ruins of a
monastery and some leafless trees, while the corps de
ballet is grouped in a white and quivering semi-circle,
pelage
their wings silver, their long skirts delicately frilled,
with flowers in their heair andat their breasts.
have all seen so many bad performances of Les Sylphides,
treated as a kind of overture in front of a more 'demand-
ing' ballet, that it is difficult for us to realise that
euer Con coived.
this is infact among the most demanding ballets in-exist- k
BHGE
It is here that the dancer-- -and it applies equally
to the corps de ballet as to the four soloists---must
achieve that movingly contradictory effect of unphysicality
which is perhaps the ultimate reason for watching dancing
at all.
There are no tricks to fall back, no tours de
force, no comic interludes.
It should all pass like the
most ecstatically reposeful dream, yet so tense as to hold
Steadin A
the attention with hypnotic compulsion.
There are few
ballet-companies in the world today capable of such con-
centrated self-sacrifice.
Among wE
Maurice
BejartscompanyatBrussels
muct = te II
a aoT =
worsr
Pavlova was called 'muse of Parnassus' and 'divine'
for her part in Les Sylphides.
She invariably seemed to
glow when she danced, totally absorbed into her part,
with a nervous rapture that lifted her and made her quiver
with a strangely contained and even muscular frailty.
She was twenty-seven at this time, and already an acknow-
ledged prima ballerina even in the West, So that Benois'
feeling that: she kept away from the Russian Season for the
succeed
first two weeks in order to seeif it would
S succes ssful
wele
may/be true.
But the usual story that she only stayed
to dance in two performances is wrong.
She honoured her


contract with Diaghilev and even danced at the gala
performance he arranged at the end of the Châtelet
season.
It is possible she disliked Karsavina's triumph,
and Nijinsky's even more (some say he eclipsed her in
Les Sylphides with his superior powers of aloof gravity),
particulart as his sota sta
The fact that
Paris raved about Ida Rubinstein in the other ballet of
atleast
the evning, Cleopatra, did not help.
But there were/two
Pavlova
more important reasons why she/left the company---first,
that she enjoyed working with a company of her own (she
made her London debut the following year at the Palace
theatre with Mordkine and a company of eight), and second,
that shewas aware of Diaghilev's slight reserve towards
her as a dancer. He was much more under Karsavina's
spell---andjrealised how much that had to do withthe spell
atmoaphere that Le Pavxllon d'Armide had cast over the
whole Russian Season.
'Fata' was his dancer. One
im te
morning he wandered into the dark Châtelet/and found
daglig sun-
lit
her practising alone on the
Titha GatE - as sHat A
Sreet 6
stage,
a I Attiside, and/murmured to her, 'We're all living in
the witchery of Armida's groves.
The very air round the
Russian Season is intoxicated'. In those days, Karsavina
said, he would suddenly appear in the stalls or backstage
and 'vanish in the middle of a sentence'.
It was part of
his 'brave attempt at omnipresence'. And somehow Pavlova
had arrived too late to share in the fever, because she had
missed the sacrifices of the first days.
Les Sylphides, the 'ballet blanc', called by Svetlov
'a memory of Taglioni', 9 got much the same enchanted but
mixed reception as Le Pavillon, while Cleopatra caused the
same excited stir as the dances from Prince Igor. kad
Le Pavillon was later forgotten as a ballet, after
it was given in London at George V's coronation in 1911.
One of its décors, Armida's garden, figured later in
another Diaghilev ballet, Le Mariage d'Aurore.
There
were too many 'scenic appliances' in Le Pavillon for it


to last, according to Benois: it was a work of nost-
algia for the grand spectacle.
As an introduction 16
the Russian Ballet, over which the unfamiliar eye
could wander, it was useful.
But Cleopatra, like the
Polovtsian Dances, actually invaded contemporary taste.
Robert de Montesquieu went to every performance of
Cleopatra a0 as not to miss Ida Rubinstein.
He invited
her out to Neuilly.
'How she walked, Benois said of her,
'with what a regal bearing, with what beauty of movement!'


movement-
MOnSI A -
one
irer most cessful
accoompt Lishments among HY ideas
A at
rimset
ES Laying Amoun, Bakst's setting showed the
outside of a temple cut from huge rocks, with the blue
Nile in the distance. Some young Egyptian girls pass
with pitchers on their heads, and Ta-hor (Pavlova) then
(Fokine)
enters looking OEF Amoun, her loverA He leaps onstage
and they dance a pas de deux which is interrupted by the
arrival of the High Briest, to whom they make reverence.
Cleopatra ison her way.
There is a great burst of
music and a procession enters with a sarcophagus at the
rear. Kean Cocteau described this point in the -
ballet four yearslater: 'There were musicians who
plucked long, oval-shaped citharas, their tones richly
resonant and yet as soft as the breathing of serpents.
Flutists, their arms raised in angular poses, blew from
their pipes spirals of sound So piercing, so sharp, that
one's nerves could hardly bear them...
Finally, borne
on the shoulders of six colossi there appeared a kind
of ebony and gold casket...
The bearers set the
casket down in the middle of the temple, opened its
double lid, and from within lifted a kind of mummy, a
bundle of veils, which they placed uprigkt on its ivory
pattens.
Then four slaves began an astonishing mancouvre.
They unwound the first veil, which was red, with silver
second
lotuses and crocodiles; then the Seone veil, which was
green with the hislory of the dynasties in gold filigree;
then the third, which was orange with prismatic stripes;
and so on until the twelfth veil, a dark blue, which,
one divined, enclosed the body of a woman.. €
Mme Rub-
instein released herself, letting it fall with a sweeping,
circular gesture.
She stood leaning forward, her
shoulders slightly humped like the wings of the ibis;
overcome by her long wait, having submitted in her dark
coffin, as had we, to the intolerable and sublime music
of her cortège, she wavered àn herthigh pattens.
She


was wearing a small blue wig, from which a short golden
braid hung down on either side of her face... There she
stood, unswathed, eyes vacant, cheeks pale, lips
parted, shoulders hunched, and as she confronted the
stunned audience, she was too beautiful, like a too
potent fragrance.'
by-ather-staves
Amoun, half hidden, gazes at her.
Ta-hor must dance for her.
Amoun is driven wild by
desire for Cleopatra and takes it into his head to shoot
an arrow towards her. It falls close to her, and he is
arrested by guards.
The arrow contains a message to the
queen on papyrus, which she reads. She is expected to
sentence the youth to death, but he interests her. She
him
offers/a night of love which he must pay for by dying.
He agrees, kisses her feet. This throws Ta-hor into
a frenzy and she pleads with Amoun not to abandon her.
She pleads with the queen, who is equally indifférent. She,
evetoped towaeds
fung
she all but forces Amounaway from
the queen.
But he dashes back, othe queen, and ste Cleepalia
daaws him towards her spftly, while veils begin to con-
ceal them from the audience.
While they make love behind
Ge Tet
the slave-boy and the slave-girl (Nijinsky and
Karsavina) dance with great wildness to suggest the erotic
infore
climax, Guiminating the danceof te Greek girls whro
pour on to the stage for the baccahanle, until they foo
from
collapse, and the act of love is over. The High Briest Glayeneds
enters with the cup of poison. for Amoun.
Cleopatra
hos Saison)
rises and takes the cup, SIE offers it to the boy.
He drinks, and falls even before he has finished.it, But


just before he dies she manages to raise him to a standing
position, ag her hands under his chin, and gazes into
his eyes Ee
during his death throes.
Then He falls.
She stands there quite still, gazing before her ecstatically,
then leaves sgain with her retinue.
The Migh Briest says
a prayer over Amoun's body and throws a dark cloth over
The stage is empty for a moment.
Ta-hor/ enters
searching for her lover.
She sees the dark form on the
ground, raises the cloth and discovers Amoun. She
is OVer,
and kisserce He
him on the lips, and t aer begins rending her hair with
statk and
grief,k
Here was the/sombre power that Paris wanted to associate
with the Russians, after the 'pure and aerial classicism'
Svetor) of Les Sylphides.
Thescene a L
Was
thaf S
uesploinglas overwhelming as for the Polovtsian Dances, and once more
Clespoliavm the orchestra rails were nearly uprooted.
The cmpany dancers
was called again and again. No one could stop talking
about 'La Rubginstein. And Cleopatra was new, too! It
swept ballet out of the context of the graceful fairy
tale into the terrible, and not the safely mimed terrible
either.
The classical technique was turned upside down.
This was the most recognisably post-Graham ballet of them
all.
Again, it was the decor that made the first impact,
laid the first impression almost af a new art-form. No
one had seen a setting of such threatening ad-sembre
presence, with Bakst's vast figures cut out of the rock
on either side, downstage from the temple.
Little wonder
flinvedi
nous
that many Parisians/ felt that their lives wereydivided into
two epochs, the one before the first Russian Season, and the
taslt
one after, when their 'eyes were opened' and all their ideas-togrn
underwent a change.
People simply did not expect to come
to the ballet for, among othertthings, an authentic view
of the post.
Bakst showed Egypt as it had not been seen
on the stage before, like an archaeological discovery: m its own.
Diaghilev told Boris Kochno that after Kaiser Wilhelm 11
saw the opening night of Cleopatra in Berlin he called to-
gether the Society of Eeyptologists and urged them to study
Bakst's setting.
Judith, Serov's opera, was seen on June 6, with
Chaliapine and Litvinne, followed by Le Pavillon d'Krmide.


Glinka's Russlan and Ludmilla was taken off, and replaced witk
Judith, perhaps to cool Chaliapine (there was no part
lackedor
for him in Russlan) after Cleopatra had been
a the
addedto
ths making i
Csnol par
Ivan the Terrible, vhichmust have me
soom) clear that
more 7
Hon
I He
ballet was now in favour a th €
a nse d opera.
Unden-
programme, 1 iably, Cleopatra was a hit, and extra performances were needed.
witt
The season ended on June 18 end a special gala per-
formance wa-given at the Opéra te FO - oun
evening
(Diaghilev hoped to be performing there the following
Pavlova danced in Les Sylphides, and Le Festin
was given again, while Chaliapine sang in two acts from
Boris Godunov.
Afterwards there was a party at which
Palmes Académiques were given to Pavlova, Karsavina,
Nijinsky, Fokine and Grigoriev.
Nijinsky was suffering
(elined
from a sore
which made it impossible for him to
throat,
heke
typloid feve) dance the followir a X evening at an open-air fête given
by Maurice Ephrussy and his wife in the large garden at
the back of their house un the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne.
A stage was set up, closeto the garden's fountain, and
spots were fixed at the upper windows of the house.te
ma nee A mirror was hidden among the
lichen of the fountain to twinkle and flash. The night
was warm and dark. It was a marvellous segting for Les
Sylphides.
was not Pavi ovathat Mme
admired
movins
L e
Ephrussyadmired
mostbut Karsavina with her stran combination ofjupright-
rurils
ness borderine
and
ness-- --what Diaghilev
lovingly called her vertu farouche. He had secured a fee 1 me
thousand francs for Nijinsky, an enpormous sum for one
performance, and Astruc told Karsavina (who was getting
five hundred) that Mme Ephrussy wished her to have the
same.
*sithappened
ISKY wwas too 1II with typhoid
fevert
Apart
TT 5
R Smirnov sang a Tosca aria and
some Russian pieces.
At supper afterwards Diaghilev
had a distant, overburdened look.
He murmured a few
words to Karsavina in a tired way. As to the fact that
he had already approached the managers of the Opéra for


ceit Healre
an option on theOpéra for the following year Diaghilev
gave no hint (even to Astruc).
Karsavina therefore
felt at liberty to sign up with the Coliseum theatre in
London for a limited season and soon discovered that un-
also
like Anna Pavlova (whojtook up another engagement, in
a gala performance at the Opéra with Kshesinskaya) she
was now considered to belong to Diaghilev.
And other
members of his 'family' disappeared, some with a little
prod from him. The elopement of his lover and secretary
Mavrine with 0lga Fedorova was no blow - tohin since he
aad Mavrine
now had Nijinsky. Anyway, he/had had a number of quarrels,
giaghulev
avrt
and even given him the money to go away with.
He warned Astruc, on the day of Mavrine's departure,
not to hand over any money to 'any single one of my
secretaries'.
Another elopement from the company had
taken place a few days before Pavlova's arrival: Karalli
wene
hadgone off with the tenor Sobinov, some say because
she was jealous of Karsavina's triumph.
Karsavina was
given her role of Armida, and herypplace in the pas de
trois was taken by Alexandra Fedorova Fokine (who had
married Fokine's brother).
Diaghilev found an aprtment (after his hotel had
complained of the danger of infection) and began nursing
Nijinsky as he had once nursed his half-brother, with
a loving care that overcame his own terror of infection.
Nijinsky, used to he et can
a - A St Petersburgys clean water
had drunk straight from the tap in his hotel bedroom,
and this was doubtless the cause of his typhoid.
Luckily Dr Botkine, the Tsar's personal physician,
happened to be in Paris and looked after him, since
Gher the
Diaghilev had no faith in French doctors. He decided
Seaan was
to take the boy to Karlsbad for a cure) later, then to
oves,
Venice.


According to Grigoriev, the Russian Season was a
triumph artistically and financially.
That was not the
case.
Diagilev ended in debt---and quarrelling with
Astruc, who then set out to do him as much damage in St
Petersburg as he could manage.
Astruc felt that it was
Diaghilev's 'mania for beauty and perfection', as he
put
it, that turned a resoudning theatrical success
were
into penury.
There was 86,000 francs owing at the close
of the season, despite the fact that houses had been up
to capacity, and each performance had pulled in more than
the estimated 25,000 francs.
Astruc, pursued by Dia-
ghilev's creditors, laid hands on his costumes and settings,
and got a loan of 20,000 francsx using them as a guarant-


luhicl Kadl upholstered Ite Charelet
ee, while the firm of Belsacq put the bailiffs on to
He Aveuue Nopira,
Piaghilev's personal possessions at the Hôtel de Hollande,
Compary
his/headquarters.
Apart from this, Diaghilev owed the
hotel several thousand francs on his own account. Astruc
also tried to get him declared bankrupt, and Diaghilev
signed him an IOU for 15,000 francs to be paid on October
7. Meanwhile the scenery was packed up at the Châtelet
under Calvocoressi's supervision.
He wandered about the
stage looking sad while Grigoriev paid off the last'of the
salaries. - Diaghilev and Calvocoressi made a lightning
trip to London in response to an offer from a music hall.
Hupe
But when. they saw the performancesthey were reluctant decided
ting
agata put/the Russian Ballet among pérforming bears and
inTeas,
trick cyclists. LThey took an option on Drury Lane
retumed
Ikoy
theatre for £500.But when .they pot back to Parisfound
wailiy
only writh so the tlene fell through.
Somehow Diagh-
fothen
BGermang
ilev managed to get awayh though according to Astruc he
was 'daught' at the Gare du Nord and served with mgre
writs.. He asked Astruc, 'Why on earth have they taken
my trunks, my waistcoats, and even my underpants?' It
was a wonder that his faithful Vassily, a real moujik
do t.
with his beard and cropped head, had let them2 Fe Vanily
almost never let his master out of his sight, unless Xe was
consigned to watch over Nijinsky.
This Vassily did
with meticulous devotion, and even looked after his
dancing shoes for him.
He stood in the wings ready with
dozens of pairs, specially made by Nicolini of Milan,
for Nijinsky would wear out two or three pairs in each
ballet.
andBakse
With-Bakst, Diaghilev and Nijinsky /reached Karlsbad
and stttled down for a couple of weeks, walking in the
pine woods and visiting the Russian church, there.
Their
rooms were pleasant, with balconies looking down the
slppe of a hill.
Nijinsky did no practising hene, and eveu
seemed fit enough not to need the cure, though he did
have massages, and exercised in his room.
Diaghilev
was---without saying a word to his associates---closely
homeut
involved)in preparing not only a new season but new
ballets.
With no money in his pocket he had discussed


projects with Cocteau and Reynaldo Hahn (the result was
the ballet Le Dieu Bleu) and commissioned Daphnis and Cloe
from Ravel.
At the end of their holiday he returned to
Paris, for further aruguments with Gabriel Astruc and dis-
new
cussions with Debussy about ayballet which (perhaps because
Debussy distrusted Diaghilev) came to nothing.
Bakst
and Nijinsky went on to Venice, where Diaghilev was to
join them after a few days.
He managed to get the com-
pany's musical scores out of Astruc, and asked for Serov's
original drawing for the Anna Pavlova poster, which was
to be a present for Dr Botkine, tte Tars berinal physician
didl
His real holiday feag in Venice---it always was.
exprenian
changed His tiredres A
ES appeared within hours of his arrivigg
ro stay
at the Hotel des Bains on the Lido, a strange
place/for
a man TEE
was terrified of the sea to
thac
where he weuld draw his curtains in order not to see it.
Bakst shared the fear, and Benois (who had joined them)
had great fun with Nijinsky dragging him into the Adriat-
Both Benci
ee exeell
swimmers.
D'Annunzio, who already knew Diaghilev, joined their
party when he could, and alteady they were the centre of
Social
much/ attention. They spent theifdays sightseeing or
sitting outside Florian's, though the heat tended to
drive them to the Lido, to await the pleasures of the
evening.
Isadora Duncan was there too and met Nijinsky
for the first time at a party given by the famous Roman
beauty, the Marchesa Casati, who had once entered a
ballroom inkome in a chariot drawn by lions, with a
live snake round her neck.
According to Romola Nijinsky,
who may have got it from her husband, Isadora Dunean
was anxious at this time to be included in Diaghilev's
company and to take roles like that given to Ida Rubin-
stein.
TAat would of course have been absurd for a
dancer already soundly established everywhere in Europe,
but it is true that she and Diaghilet had many con-
versations in Venice, and she may have wished to collab-
orate with him on certain ballets, an approach which
he resisted.
He wished very much to steer his own ship,
laudosa nggertid Dioghilev Thal Xhe ol
ton
uo tkur
ca belwee
Nitay
sould Mcafp logat
bndluce
gre
Jingrles tan Melcs M - Nij inhy, to simfly mileal.


a reason why he felt HEEEE
drawn to the young and
great 1
unformed zather than to theyestablishedjswe Kshesinskaya,
Pavlova, Karalli.
Karsavina was aware of his need for
her---for 'A clay unhardened. - Hehadnedof 1 me and
hadimplicit faith in him
Yet she found working with
him hard, because he was 'an erratic organiser'. This
those
was how it must often have appeared to somenne not engaged
kis
for
in # daily quest for subsidisation and/dates in the right
theatres at the right time, with the right dancers in the
right pallets, all of which
invariably failed to
txea cued h factors
coincide until what/ always seemed too late. For the im-
presario, who seems to be holding back information on the
can never committ himself to a definite
until
2S future,
plan
the miraculous has happened and all the necessary parts of
Laue sudderl un fied,
a project tre
le er The dancer's contract,
which to the dancer seemed the first step to a production,
was in fact the last.


An Itch for Independence
'For ballet you need the crème de la crème of dancing,
music and painting, I Diaghilev once told a young impresario
in Berlin.
'It is only when you have the best of these
three arts that you can succeed, and it is a very expensive
business.'
And Lator, when Nouvel told him that the young
impesans
mary had not been paid for his part in launching the Berlin
he added season, 'This ballet business, it's very bad, very bad.
Never become a ballet impresario, young man.
It never
Gabriel Astruc thought that it not only should but
could pay, and blamed Diaghilev for that perfection without
which the Russian Season could not have succeeded, much
less initiated a legend.
When he discovered that Diaghil-
ev had been negotiating with the Opéra he decided to make
war on him---these were his words in a letter to cahliapine
dated October 9 1909, by which time the Marynsky season
had been on over a month and Diaghilev's committee-meet-
were
ings in his apartment jonce more in full swing. 'As you
know, 1 wrote Astruc, 'I possess certain weapons: but
there are even more lethal ones which I shall resort to
when the moment comes. War has been forced on me and I
declare war today'. The weapons he referred to were
his ability to discredit Diaghilev as a bankrupt in Paris,
and the fact that he himself was trusted in St Petersburg,
particularly by Diaghilev's enemies.
He set out to ruin
his former associate not because Diaghilev wanted another
season in Paris, or because he had gone behind his back


to talk terms with Messager and Broussan of the Opéra
but because he himself was organising a season for May
and June of 1910 in which the company and corps de ballet
of the Metropolitan ofera House in New York would appear
at the Châtelet theatre. Since, in the letter to canl-
iapine, Astruc reminds him that as long as five months
before he had asked him 'a question' (clearly, whether
Chaliapine would agree to appear with the Metropolitan
t i cleas ttue Le was
Met
company)
mttst ave been planning the/season shile the Rogaeahs
Russian Beason was on back in Mayk That may very well
have been the reason why Diaghilev went to the Opéra
Asa show - managers, and said nothing about it to Astruc. They
Murth
wog were after all independent producers. I
unce Da ich
The trouble was that a Rssian Season and ar-American Met
'Ir isnt
in the most esteral way
eb 7h Season would clash hopelessly, a
e gobdto
enou
sncceed either
Since the Opéra had its repertoire on Mondays,
frienols Wednesdays and Fridays, it was logical that
other
any
hnu st fail! opera- or ballet-group of equal standing would have to
perform on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
From his
own point of view Astruc had no alternative to destroying
Diaghilev.
In his letter to Chaliapine he told him,
more or less, that he must choose between himself and
Diaghilev: 'You have been warned.
Make up your mind'.
The wonder is that he did not succeed in destroying doingit,
once more
Plae N I I tev, and that he Disakile was/able to leave St Peters-
burg once more the following year with a troupe of dancers
ihs
who belonged to the Tsar, and-whomth
erial Ballet
coutdt haver AtT
T Russia.
But the Russian system was
autocratic and it is difficult for.an authority that
isurvives by balancing the-interests of the top families
to annul the career of one of their/sons, even when there
are scandalous stories about him.
Astruc asked permission
of Count Friedericks, Minister of the Court, to make a
full report to the Tsar of the Diaghilev affair', and
almost
got it.
The report wasleleven pages long and referred
to Diaghilev's 'very intimate friend' who had eloped with
a ballet-dancer, his ex-secretary Mavrine.
That was a
reference en passant, but every Grand puke knew what it
meant.


But no grand puke cauld be unaware of what Diaghil-
ev had done for the Russian image in western Europe at
a time when it miais be of maximum political advantage.
With revolution threatening, the Tsar could hardly do
without a foreign friend.
That Diaghilev's private
did
lifema scamdatous worked against him more-than-the
lerance of-homosexuali
among-professianal people in
Petereburg might-make T seems But Astruc's campaign failed,
Fe i luckily for himself---since he and Diagh-
ilev were soon collaborating again on the 1910 season.
The Tsar even signed an order to give Diaghilev a subsidy,
Later n though he did withdraw it, and the sum was
Bul-
paltry. At no time did he threaten to withhold dancers
from him. There were too many people close to the Court
wRo wer
like Dr Serge Botkine,) speaking hard for Diaghilev's in-
tegrity. On the other hand his attempts to lay his hands
on some money to pay deposits on both the Opéra and the
Drqury Lane theatre in London failed. Even Maria Pavlovna,
the Grand Duke Vladimir's widow, turned against him. He
went to the prime minister, Stolypine, personally, but it
did not help.
There was over 24,000 francs still owing
to Astrucgalone.
orotter
At this stage he had no doubt that somehow /there would
be a 1910 season, and his committee went on preparing the
repertoire.
It was again to be a mixture of opera and
ballet.
Diaghilev wanted to present Rimsky-Korsakov's
opera Sadko, and also his symphonic poem
since the
ame
Schéneazade,
his kiece
combosers beacanse) Cleopatra and thecompo
art in Le Festin
being
had gone down so well inParis asjcharacetristically
'Russian.
But there were difficulties about taking opera
abroad once more.
It was desperately expensive.
And
this time Chaliapine might not join them.
On the other
hand, the Opéra might not like an exclusively ballet season
Dieshilev
either.
He imself was still not convinced that ballet
was 'srtong' enough
Both Benois and
toypresent/alone.
Fokine argued the other way. But Ir they did take ballet
alone, would the dancers be available---Pavlova, Kshesin-
fot Rer
skaya (whom Diaghilev wanted) and Fokine did not), and
prestige Karsavina?


It had been in Diaghilev's mind since his Venetian
holiday to present another vivid Russian ballet like
The Polovtsian Dances, and Fokine came up with the idea
of The Firebird.
There were meetings at Benois' house
to discuss some of Afanasiev's folk tales, with the idea
of using one of them or joining several of them together.
The painters Steletzsky and Golovine were present, with
Tcherepnine, who was to compose the music, while the
writer Remizov, a fountain of Russian legend and fairy
tale, made exciting suggestions.
Even Grigoriev helped.
In the end Tcherepnine cooled. (as the rest rather hoped
he might), and Diaghilev called in Liadov, who was just
about the slowest composer in Russia.
After several
Liadov,
weeks he had only got as far as buying the music paper.
So in December the job went to the ardently ambitious
Stravinsky (now twenty-seven).
When Diaghilev rang him
up to tell him he replied that he had already started
work! That was the kind of thing Diaghilev liked to
hear, especially from one whom he later regargded as
his 'first son' (the other two being Prokofiev and
Dukelsky).
Not that Stravinsky was sure of his own
ability, much less desire, to write 'descriptive' music
of the kind considered necessary for ballet. He wanted
his own head rather than a commission to write imitation
Ramsky,Korsakov'(against whom he was in revolt at the
But,
time). L X small committee of Diaghilev, Benois, Bakst,
Fokine and Nijinsky called on him and assured him that
all would be well. That was not quite the case, as
matters turned out, since for Fokine the music was there
tp provide the dancers with rhythmic accompaniment,
while for Stravinsky the dancing should be designed to
express the music, even if this meant the minimum of
steps. The Lattery always felt that Fokine Efor-whom
hehad
greatest Tuspectloverloaded The Firebird
with movement E that there was 'an unplesant discord-
ance between the movements of the dance and the imperat-
ive demands' of the music. For him the music was the
essential shaping force of everything that went on on
the stage.
But for dancers and choreographers his work


Rimsky -Konakov Rad nce wnt
-153- How
shou ndd be
das
mime l
efas
Nas
/never really dance music, however richly and emphatically
rhythmic in design.
Serge Lifar even wrote, in one of his.
books on ballet, 'nothing is more oppgoed to dancing than
M. Stravinsky's music', for 'not everything rhythmic is
necessarily danceable'.
And often enough lesser music
made
makes better ballet.
Stravinsky's music is so beautiful
in itself that it is all sufficiént', Lifar says, 'it has
no need of a dancing addition'.
It was not surprising
therefore that the finest composers should be rather appall-
ed by the kind of choreographic design put on their work.
Debussy, and Rimsky-Korsakpv were among them. K Eimstr
Now Ris
wer
family was making trouble over the plan to make tur
turn Schéhérazade into a ballet.
And-when
A performed
aris there was anout
com the ms
U lt
oug,
ig to regard as asacrilege the chaning of the
prupose
of a piece of music? asked Hemf Gheon
He torgives
S ak
EVISE hers to ry Lt
The
atestion a
een
Digghilev,
tho constantly rifled snippets and suites and
from concerti
mtoifs
mphane cesl tonepoems
with
to provide accempant me
Thefact
ual.
Buttkefuct
ballets
that he put his faith in Stravinsky, knowing from the beginn-
ing that he would refuse to be regarded as a 'descriptive
musical servant of dance-steps, meant that he was aiming
at the kind of ballet which surpassed even the dance, to
aim
ver L attain a new theatrical wonder/ It was
that made
this/too
de ancug
him see in each new dancert-/Nijinsky, Lifar, Massine, Dolin
Ye Balanchine---the hope of a new choreographi which would hake ki
te take
a Het +
AU Ier - I C C unity ponible.
sn a A C
epe + H dent
was not achieved in the Stravinsky
ballets, even Petrouchka, triumph though it was. THeke Shannsks
bert.
ballets were striking, scandalous.
Anna Pavlova refused
to dance in them, and regarded Diaghilev as an iconoclast
for permitting them. He may well have agreed---because
some new force was necessary to destroy the former subject-
baradoxical ion of ballet to the danci steps alone.
He .educated
Loupr thv his public away from the spectacular and romantic ballet,
miglv Jeem which may well have accounted for the financial failure
Brncess
of his superb Sleeping Beattr years later in London, des-
pite its excellent reception in the first weeks.


Somehow the advance for the Opéra season was paid,
perhaps by Walter Nouvel, who borrowed the sum from his
mother for three months (it was repaid after a year),
and whose cheque was countersigned by three men---Prince
Argutinsky, Diaghilev and a newcomer to the group who
made the 1910 season possible, Baron Dmitri Gunsburg.
He came from a rich and noble Jewish family. His two
loves were antiques and ballet, and he was something of
a dandy. His loans to Diaghilev were often as high as
100,000 roubles at a time, and often they were not paid
back.
He would buy expensive and unnecessary props
which 'might come in useful one day' and seldom did.
He had the habit of jotting down accounts on his shirt-
cuff and then, when Diaghilev came to him with a 'finan-
cial' question, would yell, 'My shirt's gone to the
elways
wash---how can I tell you?', which Diaghilevzaccepted,
absolttely as he never even used his shirt-cuff.
Gûnsburg paid up Diaghilev's debt to Astruc in
full.
Until the war he kept the Diaghilev company
going by supporting its losses.
The capital he laid
out he never saw again, but he had great fun with the
company and kept his humour unflinchingly.
He was
tall and sturdy. The company came to adore him,
and he travelled everywhere with them.
Diaghilev
rather cooled towards him, at least for a time, when
Nijinsky married Romola, as he (and not only he) thought
that Gûnsburg had rather engineered it.
But Diaghilev
needed'his money, and probably the warmth and gaiety
of his friendship even more---and the hurt was swall-
owed.
Diaghilev went to Paris in the middle of December,
since war with Astruc was clearly going to ruin either
him or Astruc, and atrpresent it looked like him. Misia
Sert and Robert Brussel joined their meetings.


was reached: Of course a lot of groundwork had been
done in the previous weeks on a social levei, and the :
Comtesse de Béarn, Mme de Ganay and Mme de Chévigné
had been softening Astruc up.
Two days before Christ-
may Astruc wrote Brussel a formal letter setting out
he agreement he had reached with Diaghilev. The Opéra
and the Cahtelet seasons would be simultaneous, since
'M. de Diaghilev could not get out of his agreement with
the Opéra and postpone his season until 1911' (as if he
ever had any intention of doing so), nor could 'M. de
Diaghilev put back his season by three weeks because of
contracts signed with London for periods preceding and
following his Paris season.
The only solution of our
problems was that suggested by M. de Diaghilev, namely
that I should agree to upset my plans and change my per-


formances at the Châtelet from Tuesdays, ThursAdays and
staurdays to Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
In spite
of the serious damage this change of days might do me,
with the danger of entirely losing the abonnés of the
Opéra and of having to subtract the takings of that
theatre (22,000 francs a night in May) from my potential
receipts, I am disposed to agree to the proposed change'.
Diaghilev was to agree to give him Chaliapine between
19 May and 25 June while Astruc was to be given the ad-
ministration of the Opéra season for a fee of 5% of the
box office gross.
Diaghilev was also to repay him the
24,711 francs he owed him, plus 'costs and interest'.
This was the sumlater paid by Gânsburg (but not until
an ultimatum from Astruc reached him through Brussel
on 10 January of the following
It looked as
though Cahliapine would not agree to do a season for
Astruc after all, but this confaition was not an absolute
one. On the other hand, the Opéra management had yet
to be persuaded that a season without opera (and Chal-
iapine's refusal to sing even
; meant this)
washeither finanically viablelor in keeping with that
theatre's traditions. At the end of April he sent Nouvel
and Gûnsburg to Paris to argue it out with Messager
and Broussan.
Now that the theatre and the season were available,
everything else started coming unstpck. Back in St
Petersburg, Diaghilev fell ill. It did not look as though
he would get Kshesinskaya (whom Astruc was perhaps trying
to engage simultaneously.)
And all of a sudden Karsavaina
came out with the news that she had signed up with the
Coliseum theatre in London for another season in 1910.
And the Opéra was insisting on her appearance!
Diaghilev
was distraught.
'You should have kept yourself free!'
he told her.
'You ought to have told me of your plans
for another season long ago!' she replied. 'And now I'm
bound by my signature!' He argued, pleaded. She sent frantic
telegrams to her impresario.
The answer was always
the same---'no chance of altering dates'.
Meanwhmle


Heanwhile Diaghilev, weut was m 'tormenting'her. She began to
dread the telephone, knowing how difficult it was to resist his
Invanably
aghiler pressure. L And he always asked her to come over
to his apartment in the evening'to see the work of the
artistic commitpee'. And there he would proceed to wear
her dour; not by logic but by 'the sheer stress of his
will, by tenacity incredible'.
His apartment was, she
said, 'a Chancery and a small Parnassus in two rooms' at
that time. Benois"topped the Areopagus'---wise, practical,
inspired, clear, kindly, erudite.
It was a difficult
group for someone as radiantly intelligent as Karsavina
Diaghilav
to avoid.
te knew well enough how intoxicated she wauld
be by those evening visits.
Roerich too was usually
alse
there---that 'prophet with impeded speech', , lamd the artist
Mitislav Doboujinsky, a naive and simple man, the great
romantic of stage-design.
Stravinsky and Fokine would
be in the next room arguing over A score and appealing
wheneve
to Diaghilev i they disagreed on tempi. Diaghilev
brought quick, unhesitating degcision to every doubt.
He had the sense of the theatre to an uncanny degree'.
deliveries
Tragesmen would burst in, eften with) bills.
Someone
would disdover that Anisfeld meeded more canvas to paint
on. According to Benois, she became 'one of us' in
those days.
'Tamara Platonovna was not only a beautiful
woman and a first-class, highly individual artist, but
had aa well a most attractive personality...infinitely
morebultured than most of her comrades'.
leave
On the evening she was toeo there was one last
phone-call from Diaghilev.
He asked her to come over
at once 'to talk things over'.
She had already promised
him that she would beg Oswald Stoll, the London manager,
for leave after her first fortnight, and Diaghilev re-
minded her of her promise.
'We cried a little.'
The
image-lamp was on, and Diaghilev looked weary, all
of a sudden 'a mere human'.


These were tough months for him.
The Rimsky-Korsakov
>tll
family were/being adamant about Schénérazade.
Anna Pavlova
told him that she too would be appearing in London, at the
Palace theatre, and so could not dance his Firebird for him,
or in Giselle (the third new ballet under preparation).
Apart from the fact that she was going to,get more money
in London than she could expect from Diag ghiley, she disliked
Stravinsky's music intensely, and felt that it left no
room for the kind of grace she had, apart from being ugly
and wilfully eccentric in itself.
Thus Diaghilev could
not supply Astruc with either Chaliapine or two of the
great dancers he wanted.
Instead of saying this, he
cabled Astrud offering fhitc three performances of Cleopatra
at the Châtelet to augment his Italian opera, for the
price of 50,000 francs. Astruc wited back offering
45,000 francs for three performances each of Cleopatra,
Les Sylphides and Le Festin, on the condition that Pavlova,
Karsavina, Nijinsky, Fokine, Ida Rubinstein and Kshesinskaya
all appeared.
In other words, he knew precisely what
difficulties Diaghilev was having, and this was his way
of telling him so. In fact three days later Astruc I leamadl
comtact
son aug wiredhin that Kshesinskaya had
refused to appear in Diaghilev's company, and that the
Paris season could not possibly take place.
At once Re
Astrue cabled Diaghilev asking him to name the dates of
his dress rehearsal and first night---no doubt to put him
on a spot.
He must have been surprised when he got the
data
reply naming 22 and 24 May, neither of which/was kept.
Another blow was the death of Sergei Botkine, who
had been So valuable at Court.
It removed the last
chance of money from the Tsar.
Diaghilev went on neg-
otiating for seasons in London and New York, not to ment-
ion Berlin and Brussels (the former for a date before
for
the Paris opening, and the latteryimmediately aftewards).
tefusns
He againment to Paris at Easter. The telegrams he sent
to Benois in St Petersburg were so alarming that the latter
e € cus
feared he might committ suicide. By this time/ Misia Edwarde clote
tam
and-Diaghit
re clote néugh to storm at each other.
soye
Pord SLO ya
Tan
He would go into a fury


m au eveniing
A e Las
if she had a dinner-date, when he wanter L 7 rer withher.
Having a life of her own always looked to him like an excuse
to cover a lack of feeling for him.
'I know very well
that friendships don't last for centuries, but one thing I
do beg of you, and that is never to tell me again that
you've been 'urgently called away', because I know it al-
ready. I can predict these urgent 'calls' with the ut-
most certainty, though I only consider them 'calls' in the
sense that they 'call' for the laughter of my friends to
whom Siprophesy them beforehand.' After his return from
A Paris King Edward died (7 May), and his London season
B was suddenly dead too. He had no money---only a theatre
and a season to fill, for it had been decided in Paris
that he should be his own manager for his season, and
simply rent the Opéra. He would thus have to take the
whole risk'himself.
How to get his dancers to Paris? He had
enrolled Lydia "Lopokova, who was to make such a hit nine
Foy
years later with Massine in La Boutique Fantasque, - with
Alexander Volinin and Ekaterina Geltzer from Moscow.
Count Kokovtsov, the finance minister (later prime
minister after Stolypin's assassination), bent to the
persuasions of his friends and advised the Tsar to grant
him 10,000 roubles.
The Tsar signed his approval and
with this Diaghilev (knowing how volatile Nicholas could
be) dashed to a banker he-knew and borrowed that amount
on the security of the Tsar's promise.
Train tickets
were bought---and when the Isar counter-manded his own
order(Prince Argutinsky and another friend came forward
with a guarantee for the banker: they were to be repaid
from box office receipts in Paris.
According to Prince
Peter Lieven, the Tsar went so far as to circulate? his
embassies in the west with the warning that Diaghilev
must not be helped in any way. That Diaghilev never
seemed to regret the passing of White Russia and even
lecaute the Granel Duke Sergei Miklailovilzu weut
Cparhufm
unld Ce
Khin cith the storg the tha Dinghilw progranse
decad ewt
'dicesitable t Rusiia')


consideréd returning to the Soviet Union after the war
teally surprs A
is not to + bre moneredat
The Berlin season opened in the middle of May. Of
the new ballets on the Diaghilev repertoire only Carnaval
was given, with Lopokova taking Karsavina's part of
Columbine. The Berliners adored it. The music was
Shumann's, and here and there, mingling with the Commedia
dell'Arte element, the composer's own love-life was sugg-
ested.
Back in March two students from the Technol/gical
Institute in St Petersburg had approached Fokine for a
ballet to be performed at- a'charity ball in the Pavlov
Hall, sponsored by the magzine Satyricon, of which one
of the young men, Mikhail Germanovitch Kornfeld, later
became the editor.
The ball was to be called Carnaval,
earipians
which at once put Fokine in mind of Schumann'si music of
that name. With the help of Kornfeld, who spoke fluent
German, he began studying Schumann's life, especially
feet Aol
enid le
his love for Clara Wieck, and found his
FTR
personality/ex-
pressed/in the fiery Florestan om-the-one-hant and the
romantic and sentimental Eusebius.on-theatheother. From
the biographical hints and the titles on the score--
'Harlequin', Columbine', 'Pantalon', Pierrot' and 'Papillon'
he quickly pieced together a plot, and the result was an
enchanting series of escapades, flirtations and romps,
set in the Vienna of the Biedermeier period eighty years
frv te Trall
before.
The ballet was readyl after only three rehearsals,
and the finale was composed only minutes before the ball
was due to begin.
Bakst had been approached to do the
decor for half his usual fee: he devised a garden scene
which he later changed for the intriguing curtain surround,
deep blue for the Berlin and Paris performances, emerald
green for
with a broad dado or frieze running along
6 others,
the top, in/black and
F was actually a series of
gola
msh crhich
ligh 5 ns euhau cen audsxits
and the dancers cou
hetr A
atita frall
For that first performance/the dancers had to bemasked,
since the Impetial Ballet forbade its dancers to appear
outside the Marynsky theatre during the season.
Karsavina
danced Columbine, Ludmilla Schollar was Estrella, Bronis-
lava Nijinsky (Nijinsky's sister) took the part of Papillon,
poppyy motif- On eilts ade à Ibe
lwe war a small strepeed ie tee L
Biedemcio style. The curTain


while the famous director Vsevolod Meyerhold, also an
excellent mime, took the part of Pierrot.
As they were
all masked no one seemed quite certain afterwards about
who danced Florestan.
Fokine said Vasily Kiselev, Fokine's
son (in a letter to Richard Buckle) said Nijinsky.
It was Grigoriev who suggested the ballet for the
Paris season: 'Diaghilev looked up from his exercise hook
and said that he did not particularly care for Schumann,
and anyway the ballet would not do for a large stage.
But at that moment Benois came in and gave the idea he his
support: 3 and Diaghilev wrote the name of the ballet down
as part of their new repertoire.
The music had already
been orchestrated by Rimsky-Korsakov, Glazunov, Tcherepnine
and Liadov for a concert back in 1902, so that there was
no further work to be done.
Bronislava did not continue
in her part---Diaghilev refused to include her in his
company, and according to Romola Nijinsky this was the cause
of the first big quarrel between himself and Nijinsky.
Bronislava had passed out of school with honours and had
already taken important roles at the Marynsky. She was
already getting the reputation of a brilliant actress as
well as a flawless dancer who combined something of Pavlova's
shimmering quality with the Kshesinskaya technique.
But she was not pretty, and a peetty face was still re-
garded", 9 even in the rugged Wotld of Art circle, as an
eseential of the ballerina.
Diaghilev admitted that she
had the makings of a remarkable dancer but apparently he
was not yet ready to defy the rule about prettiness (later
ofcourge he took her oyn not only as a dancer but choreo-
grapher).
in te firtdays 2 Juns
During the journey to Paris/ Nijinsky felt like a small
child before an examination.
And this time they were met
at the station by hundreds of people. The-adrance-hacking
promised
Friendsbore down on the
dancers with dates for parties and dinners, until Diaghilev
had to say, 'Please, please let them alone.
We came to
work, not to amuse ourselves.'
Lydia Lopokove fainted
tn ls
with the excitementz The staff of the Opéra was as un-
h - P
eezr


cooperative as they had been two years before.
Also
the theatre was decidedply shabby after the refurbished
Châtelet.
The advance bookings promised another success--
but Pavolva would not be appearing, and Karsavina would not
be there for the opening.
There was the danger too that
Paris might flock to see the Metropolitan Opera under
Astruc's management.
But there was Nijinsky.
There was
Aopokotay ) a dancer new to Paris, vivacious and capable of 'electrify-
ing the audience with the sheer joy and seemingly bound-
less vitality of her movements', in Cyril Beaumont's words.
There was the astonishing setting for Schérérazade, not
to mention its costumes (which were to change fashions
esenbed fo throughout the western world).
There was a new composer
Ake huo heuk a, to launch, Stravinskyk The first programme, to opening
Hhe Sq C
on 4 June, wasta consistyof Carnaval, with Lydia Lopokova
faniou pera in Karsavina's part, Schéhérazade, Le Festin once more
singarnt t and the Polovtsian Dances. The music for Schénérazade
Marguty) was, despite the Rimsky-Korsakov family, the first, second
Shicl he wo). and fourth of that composer's symphonic poem. The over-
ture at once created an eastern atmosphere and the curtain
rose on Bakst's extraordinary vision of a vast emerald
drebed clotk St
emerald A
green tent of Poided t
enelosing the world of CA d Blue iin
Shahryar's harem, with three glittering blue doors tose moti
giving on to an inner apartment in the centre of the stage,) n
and towering"columns of (orange on the right, to support ego
the gold and blue ceiling, On the left there was a
frlidde
Yil
ergune - with sct
cender
EE A platform reach Cu
DE 2 E a divan corered
Au Ita
cushions of every colour.
It was fittingly extrava- eucloied
gant/since this wasthe first big creation of the Diaghilev
company. #11 the former ballets, with the exception of
had Preen
the Polovtsian Dances, were new versions of former worka.
Ltineohes l
Benois devised the story from the Arayian Nights, Hot wittout
following however Rimsky-Korsako's notes on his score,
and inventing Zobeida (the Sultana), represented by
Rimsky-Korsakov's arabesque for solo violin and harp, as
while the opening theme belonged to
Shahryar.
Bakst was given the credit of having done the book as
tut
well as the set, and when Benois complained to Diaghilev
about this the latter said, 'What do you expect? Bakst


had to be given something. You have Le Pavillon
d'Armide, he's got Schéhérazadel' Not that Benois could
complain in Paris, since he was not there.
Diaghilev had
overlooked---deliberately or otherwise---to arrange his
visa, for-Berlin-andParis, and Benois had pushed his fist
through a window at his EH home in a fit of rage. He
not
severed an artery and nearly lost his right hand, and had
tp spend a month more in St Petersburg with his arm in
plaster.
This could/have been simple pique. He and
Diaghilev had at least five quarrels a year. anyway
Benois had played an essential part in the building of
the Ballets Russes, probably the most important part
in making it the embodiment of World of Art concepts,
in which---again---his had been the principal voice.
Diaghilev dropped people abruptly if he felt he no longer
needed them---and he may have felt now that he could
do without Benois until the next season.
When Benois
arrived in Paris and saw 'Ballet de L. Bakst' in the
programme he could not believe his eyes, though he
enjoyed the performance and embraced Bakst and Diaghilev
afterwards.
He had lost the credit for Schéhérazade
as he had for Cleopatra, and it must have been rather
clear to him that Diaghilev saw in Bakst rather than
himself the kind of startling inventiveness that he
was looking for (and in music found in Stravinsky).
Benois left Paris for Montagnola in Switzerland three
days later, and from there wrote to Diaghilev that he
would not think of collaborating with him again. The
story that Benois was resentfully aware of being elbow-
ed out of the Diaghilev enterprise is absurd.
From
Switzerland he published an article in Russian in which
he said, 'To Bakst really belongs the credit of creating
Schéréazade as a spectacle.'
When the curtain went up on Bakst's setting there


was a
burst of applause. To that even more than
to the dances, voluptuous as they were, or Ida Rubinstein's
Zobeida, or the manhandled. music, or Nijinsky's 'cat
caressing, tiger devouring' dance as Zobeida's 'slave,
the ballet's success was 'due. It seemed to summarise,
to present with full impact a certain theme already
hinted in Cleopatra and the Polovtsian-Dances. Dazzling
colour, a wild and clashing music, frenzied movement
and. marvellously deft gtouping---all the fruits of a new
collaboration that redefinedinot ohly ballet but theatre.
Pierre Lalo attacked Diaghilev for 'desecrating' the
music but went on, 'And yet, ridiculous and shocking as
this falsification of the meaning and expression of the
music may be, one almost forgets it when seeing Schéhér-
azade, so overhwelming is the magnificence, the origin-
ality of the spectacle presented to our eyes.
On the
stage...a sort of enormous tend of the inteshest, most
dazzling green, extraordinary in its richness and impact.
There is no other colour, to all intents and purposes,
and only dimly does one percenave, on those huge green
surfaces, a few vast outlines, Persian in origin, black
or orange-red.
The ground is covered by a similar
orange-red carpet of a paler tone... The clothes worn
by the men and women, for the most part, are in colours
complementary to the décor, different shades of reds and
a few greens. And against this background glitter and
move the golds and silvers of the amorous negroes.
Here and there, deeper touches of colour, like the Shah's
robes, inwhich blues and sombre violets strike the domin-


anty note, and make one think of. the loveliest Persian
miniatures.
The whole creates an ensemble miraculously
harmonious and compelling; an enchantment that continually
dazzles the eyes.
M. Bakst, the Russian painter, who has
composed this remarkable painting, linked up the colours
of this décor and the costumes, is in truth a very great
artist'.
The talk about Schénérazade was so enraptured that
Sarah Bernhardt, lame and old now, was persuaded to see
She had herself carried into the theatre but when
the curtain rose she became very Gisturbed;and began
waving her stick about.
'Let's get out of here!' she
cried.
'Quick! I'm frightened;
They're all mutes!'
For Fokine Ida Rubinstein's muteness was one of the most
moving aspects of the- ballet.
'She sits.utterly.stills
while slaughter takes place around her.
Death approaches
her, but- not thè horror nor the feari of it She majest-
ically awaits her. fate in a pose without. motion.' As:
for Nijinsky, he Pelt again and again, somersaulted three
time's after the executioner's sword had pierced him,
'beating on.the.boards like a fish at the.-bottom of a :
boat', Jean Cocteau said.
The ballet brought in 'brighter colours for women's
clothes, proved the most popular of the Diaghilev ballets. I
Arnold Haskell tells us that in a London opinion poll:
of 1925 Schéhérazade headed a long list of ballets---
despite the fact that. the questionaaire did not cite it.
The 1910 season was not received with the astonished
clamour of the previous season.
Something more import-
ant had happened. The Diaghilev ballet had become est-
lh Paris,
ablishedf People now knew what to expect. After this
only a war could dislodge it, which was precisely what
happened.
Karsavina managed to get her month's leave after
dancing in London for two weeks, and rehearsals with
o June 6
These asare
Nijinsky began) for The Firebird and Giselleyrather
stormay. Giselle was really Pavlova's part, and
Karsavina was anxious to shine in this famous French


ballet
for Ra
French
first performed in Paris in 1841. quite
wanted
asmuchas Nijinsky was
He did not cooperate, K Dia- shine rso.
ghilev was buffered hetween them. She wept. Diaghil-
ev told her consolingly, 'You don't know what volumes he
But,
has written on that part---on its interpretation'. . A Ent
herside Karsavina-probably fett that sinee she had been
performing the second act of this ballet in London (where
been
feet
kad
it Masy billed as Gisella or La Sylphide, A 'I loved every she kne
she
bit of it,' Karsmrina said.
'I was sadly taken aback
i bofectly
when I found that I danced, mimed, went off my head and
died of a broken heart without any response from Nijinsky.
He stood pensive and bit his nails. 'Now you have to
come across towards me,' I suggested. 'I know myself
what to do', he said moadily.'
Nijinsky's problem was
hip.
Fokine's too---how to make the miming look convincing
kad
als aee ogtas
in the new way (Fokinel only agreed to do the ballet/mhen
Rad
Diaghilet, threatened to employ a second ballet-master).
- a L
Eventaylly the two dancers became attuned to each other,
but the ballet proved only a great personal success for tem as
: a cr
Heme dancers, nothing more. Paris now expected/mome,
le eever time ta. custais ewt up
Rrsmply
PA Hn te HOES
a an SUB8
sext dav
Also ta Parn aus
tV tha
Her
Reynaldo
Dieglikew
hedl rees
Hahn called it 'celebrated and insipid'. h Firebird,
proved. nght with Karsavina in the title role, was a triumph for
P, led lolel hernloo. Fokine danced Ivan Tsarevitch.
Benois thought
Benoi tht it weak.
It was not, he felt, a fairy-tale for grown-
Paris md
ups, and therefore not easy to believe in.
Nor was
tr Pored.
Golovine's set helpful to the drama,ofthepiece, he
thoughto Paris, on the whole, disagreed.
'Where
I Le Fiagro asked, 'that dance of the Bird of
(in Hantre find,'
Fire,
in which Karsavina seems to defy the very laws of gravity,
and is metamorphosed into a fairy?' thattheatre OT OuTS
ras ever putendancing equrad
the bacchanale
nCleopatra
Robert Brussel and Bruneau the com-
poser even preferred it to Schéhérazade.
They saw/it
newer forms of design and movement.
Henri Ghéon wrote,
'The FIrebird, heong the result of an intimate collabor-


ation between choreography, music and painting, presents
us with the most exquisite miracle of harmony that can be
imagined, a miracle of sound and form and movement. The
old-gold vermiculation of the fantastic backcloth seems
to have been invented to a formula identical with that of
the shimmering web of the orchestra.
And as one listens,
there issues forth the very sound of the wizard shrieking,
am my of swarming sorcerers and gnomes running amok. When the
bird passes, it is truly the music that bears it aloft.
Stravinsky, Fokine, Golovin, in my eyes, are but one name'. .
It was such a suceess/ that Stravinsky rushed back to St
Petersburg to bring his wife and children for the last
performance on June 24.
He had been called to the curtain
again and again by the first-night audience.
Diaghilev
had walked on to the stage with Debussy, who had congrat-
ulated Stravinsky on his work and invited him to dinner.
At that time the young Stravinsky still had to be, talked
of in Paris as 'the son of a famous opera singer at the
Taving
Maryksky theatre, L Princé Peter uleven et
Benois Lo name
Many felt that it/his was
music that saved Firebird.
'The music at
: owa
least achieved immediate perfection, Benois said.
'One cannot imagine music more poetical, more expressive
in every movement, more beautiful, and with more of the
spirit of fantasy'.
During the rehearsals for Firebird
Diaghilev had pointed out the young Stravinsky to Karsav-
ina and said, 'Mark him well. He is a man on the eve of
celebrity'.
He saw that this was the kind of music that
made new ballets.
There was in Stravinsky a superb
it € a He
rhythmic originality, something so dynamic and brilliant
rsw
that it could
cause
ugf
only
a stir: K He was difficult to
honar
dance to---which was why Firebird was not performed again Yallels.
for some time.
'People seemed to want to rise and peer
into the orchestra-pit, enquiring, 'Who made those strange
noises?' Prince Lieven wrote. There was a certain weak-
too
ness in Stravinsky's music behind the brilliance and dynam-
ic rhythms, but that took time to become clear: for Dia-
ghilev he was par excellence the composer of the theatre,
and some will say that his finest work was done in that'
function.
(wrich wa 1s Le
ley fnc
sonifr Dinghile)


Diaghilev was decidedly more relaxed this year than
Onenizat
at the end of the 1909 season. Lfe played a practical
joke on Jean Cocteau,
more than
by LS telling He cab-driver to take him on to the Hotel des
Reservoirs at Versailles instead of his home, after he
o8f
himself had been dropped, at the Hotel Mirabeau.
The
hup.
Ballets Russes (as strange and stunning in St Petersburg
as they were in Paris) were now the thing. A process
of influence had started which would gradually, through
the war years, infiltrate to the middle classes and the
shops. After the warythere was not a middle-class home
wihtout its green and orange cushions on a black carpet.
Women dressed in the loudest colours, and the bibelots
were all striped.
Soon house-decorating, shops, brasseries
and cafés followed suit,' wrote the critic André Varnod.
Ida Rubinstein was again a triumph---a little more so than
the previous year.
She sat for Jacques Emile Blanche
in her Schénérazade costume, lying on a couch.
And Serov
unly
painted her in the same poisiton the nude.
There was
a row between Diaghilev and Bakst over her, the first of
many others.
Ida had begun to see herself as a dancer.
She was tired of miming and standing about on the stage
cend
in tragic poses while everyone leaped/sweated all round
her.
Diaghilev would not have it, and the next season
frnan - c
A speclaculer
she pertognd injproductions of her ownk with the help of partt,
d'Annunzio (now a confirmed Diaghilevite), Debussy and
the faithful Bakst.
Montesquiou was still het-chaperone 9
followed
Berjami
andpublicity
her everywhere.
She even got hold
nes
of a black panther, some say a black tiger cub.
The season was, above all, a financial success.
Astruc now knew his man, and how to control his 'mania'
ashecmlimt-it for spending. Extra performances ware
to raka place
arranged with the Opéra, thengh) after the Brussels engage-
ment had been fulfilled.
Karsavina had to return to
London, and Fokine presuaded Diaghilev with some difficulty
to let Lopokova dance the Bird of Fire.
Diaghilev offered
Karsavina a two-year contract giving him her services
through May of each year to the end of August, while the


k Sravang N J Li, Fiehidthe L.
aul
- Dra ighules iol Sravut, tlall Akire
PORE
luamel
sula L
Puctze
Cunld he settled Lh ohe
hepan IxTalh
Gorhyas
Marynsky was closed, So as to avoid her falling into the chmegph
hands of 'music halls', which he thought utterly degrading.
She could not go on prostituting her art'!
On her side
she hesitated to give up all future holidays.
'I hate
your family', he told her.
'It takes you away from me.
Why couldn't you have married Fokine? You would both
have belonged to me'. At the same time he criticised
Fokine's work as 'old-fashioned', It was clear that he
lven more
herated was straining for
forms, like those of
the Nijinsky ballets. And he did not like Fokine, who
was opinionated and quick to lose his temper.
Karsavina
was astonished to hear all this.
Then what was he going
to do with the Fokine ballets? she asked him.
dont know', he said. 'I may sell it all lock, stock and
barrel I
Are V Karavina
. the Signed his contract, and even managed to
oswald
squeeze more leave from)Stoll in London for a gala per-
formance in Brussels.
There Diaghilev was waiting for
her like a father, full of joy. He asked her later not
to mind if Geltzer (not a great dancer, and no hit in
Paris) danced her role in Les Sylphides, at which Karsavina
began raging, though she knew she would agree in the end.
Later in her dressing room (KarsavinaoncetoidRiichard
Burcktet Diaghilev, in his inimitably soft, embarrassed way
when he wanted to make up a quarrel, offered her his other
cheek to slap and even implied that he was desperately
in love with her.
He had some more peace-making to do, at Montagnola
in Switzerland, where Benois still wasf asBut this time
he failed.
He went tharelwith Nijinsky and Stravinsky.
Hehad way
Ta mg peopte ee. souryfor-himand
with Banou
even
Theyi friends stayed tore rer for a week,
friends as before, but Benois still refused to cooperate
with him further. I T #e net ot oourse mHeuthaan
H A work
HE and A AS
e TIT HSKY
was SOOTt wonk B Wth both on Petrounka
hRe defectiona
o (o
lof
1 'He leche
CA Diughules
Yaue bee C ferhn loes.


Biaghileveversustainedr Benois had a stability of
taste and culture that Diaghilev lacked and-eentinuelly
i titt
learned-from. Once Bakst, talkingte Prince
Argutinsky,
said, 'I am probably one of the foremost paintersyof the
day, but what will remain when I am gone?
Drawings,
sketches.
But Benois, he will live in history'.
He knew
how far Benois was behind the tevival of art in Russia, end
cud
the new interest in iknns and the past,)even Russia's Te svivne
past literature, as he knew how much the Ballets Russes
were an ultimate expression of that tevival.
Benois
HE L
Thever tst
himsel
tat
profession he belonged
Perhaps the ropagation et
art + this R
- a profession.
But te'what
am-most nel 1 ed
KIOV
1 IOW, ifter lifetime.
am eccupi
heavre
same ime
must
istory ef art or painting
1as
was never/ agreat lover of ballet, yet he guided Diaghil-
ev towards his destiny---he had been the first to say
that the 1910 séason must-be devoted to ballet alone.
He was a rather helpless man in practical matters, and
he lost patiehc'e "easily, dropping things over,a.trifling
In a. woid
/ obstacle-- the opposite'of the fighting Diaghilev, who. -
thrived
obstacles and loved to-ffay the weak. They
had been togéther now for over thirteen-years, since
they were boys, and Benois'4 ideas would have remained
a personal influence confined to artistic circles in
St Petersburg 'and Paris had it. not been for Diaghileb's
passion_for turning dreams.: into.livingpprojects.
Their
quarrels had always been VETF fierce.
Benois would
shriek at the top of his voice and throw himself about
the room, or smash things, or run out into the street,
where one of Diaghilev's emissgries (often Prince Argput-
insky) would follow him.
They never lost their tender-
ness for each other. But it was possible that Diaghilev,
in the first flush of success, was beginning to tire of
what he felt to be a certain encyclopedism in his friend,
whik
atd to turn towards a certain scandalism, that increasingly


marked the new productions of the Ballets Russes.
was partly demanded of him by his public, who had insisted
on the 'exotic' and the 'revolutionary's away from ballets
like Les Sylphides and Le Pavillon and Giselle. He would
sometimes say to the witty Cocteau, athras * me with an idea',
and Cocteau would nearly always find something rewand
fantadlie
paradoxical to say. In the 'Diaghilev epoch' the idea
became current that new art scandalises and baffles, and
of course a striving for bold effects as an end in them-
sleves was the result.
E the lastyearsof his life
Diaghilev often-epeneered the young, + but without the-flair
ofhis first years, because
aad now-become amatteref
fashionandnet strictly judgement.
That-waswhere-the
lessofenoiswas felto
'Nowadays, Benois said,
'innovation has become a profession.
Diaghilev was
inclined towards such things and we had to restrain him.
If we did anything revolutionary it was done involuntarily,
we issued no 'cahllenge'. Our 'originality' was due rather
to the fact that our relations towards art were different
from those of all our contemporaries.
We felt this most
strongly in Paris, where nobody in the theatrchal world,
gave-himselt Wholy TO an
perh
uave
ademee
Scandal 2 e
gave himself wholly to art'.
But while Benois was
something of a conservative Diaghilev loved to scandalise.
An event at the Narynsky theatre in 1911 helped him on
the path.


Shocked Dowagers and Two Scandals
No one thought in terms of a 'Diaghilev ballet'
at this time.
He was simply borrowing dancers from the
Imperial theatre and bringing them to western Europe.
Paris still saw him as an emissary from Russia, little
realising that the style of his ballets was as new in
St Petersburg as it was anywhere else.
Even Baron
Gunsbourg probably saw him as the Grand Duke Vladimir
had seen him---an amateur, a Maecenas without money of
his own, a well-born organiser of ballet trips abroad,
not the originator and mainstay of an entirely new enter-
prise.
Diaghilev clearly meant to change that. He
meant to sever his name once and for all from the Imper-
ial theatre, now that he was powerful enough to do so.
He was not after personal glory. He felt he had enough
of that anyway, and was not the kind to be greatly im-
pressed by publicity.
His name did not even feature
on the prgrammes. It was yearsbefore it became regard-
ed as a guarantee of 'genuine' Russian ballet, on the
hoardings.
But step by step the Ballets Russes were
becoming the Ballets Serge de Diaghilev. Gradually
his seasons occupied more and more of the year, and
a nucleus of loyal and permanent dancers began to
gather round him.
1911 was the first year of a Monte-
carlo season: it was there that he was to set up his
headquarters.
The Bolshevik regime in Russia after
1917 completed the transition by keeping out of his own
country. Most of all, the ballets he put on won him


independence, especially Petrouchka,on which Benois and
Stravinsky were soon collaboratnng.
He now wanted to perform all the year round.
It was
not so easy to entice dancers away from the security of
where
the Imperial theatre, whese contracts carried pension
clauses as well.
The principal dancers were the easiest
to engage, since they saw the greater opportunities that
Diaghilev offered, not simply because of the tours he
planned but for the moredemanding and satisfying roles.
cudolga
inthe a KIH
E F
Bolm agreed, so did Sophie
Preoknjeikeys Fedporovak Katsavina was only obliged to perform a few
PREOBRAJEN- times a year at the Marynsky, being now a prima ballerina.
SKAYA
il -
that
Grigorier + that) the corps de ballet presented the
greatest difficulty, and Diaghilev sent' Bezobrazov to
Warsaw to recruit dancers.
He also telegraphed Astruc
to enquire about a troupe said to be in Paris under the
management of the brothers Molodsov, though Fokine was
doubtful of their value.
As to Fokine himself, Dia-
ghilev no yonger wanted him as a dancer, and told him
s0---Nijinsky was to hold the field alone there.
needed all Fokine's energies for choreography and
directing, since Nijinsky was by no means ready to be-
come a choreographer, and an independent company would
have to have more than one anyway, to achieve a suffic-
ient repertoire.
Fokine agreed on condition that he
be billed as choreographic director, the L
company, and get
a 'very large salary'. (Benois expression) He Prke
There remained the problem of Nijinsky himself,
since he still had two years to run out of his five-year
contract with the Marynsky.
This was where the scandal
at the end of January 1911 came in. The Imperial Theatres
dismissed him. There was a performance of Giselle at
the Marynsky with Katsavina opposite him as before.
omited
Benois'# costume for fimpy amoitted the now usual short
trunks over the tights. He appeared simply in tights,
though he certainly wore his jock-strap---no male dancer
could afford to be that loose.
No one had taken except-
ion to it in Paris, but before the curtain went up an
official pointed out to Nijinsky that he was not wearing
with the Maruihs se Le w C7 /
Cuad
X C Conary
denciry
En tt bolikis.


a proper costume. He refused to alter, no doubt after
Rore
consultation with Diaghilev, who may have seenja chance
here of severing Nijinsky's ties with the Marynsky.
The
Dowager Empress was in the audience and during the interval
she invited Karsavina to her box but not Nijinsky.
The
following day!" was asked by Krupensky (Teliakowsky was away)
to apologise and he refused to do so. The dismissal was
published on 26 January, after the theatre had given Nijin-
sky a chance to 'reconsdier, which he did not take.
a journalist Nijinsky said, 'I don't want to discuss the
matter'.
He felt he had been dismissed in the most un-
grateful manner, and that his role could easily have been
in wex 5
at given to Legat or Andrianov, who had both danced the
He lage
parti
# tetime before the curtain rose.
It looked as if the management
had been looking for a pretext to force his resignation,
Suiled
and as it happened nothing could have beent - T t e for
belter,
Diaghileva Now, two months after he had started recruit-
ing a company of his own, Diag Stiler had his male star.
He cabled Astruc a- fortnight later to use the 'appalling
scandal 1 as publicity in Paris.
Astruc obliged, and had Paris 'seething' with the
Alfirst
news within half-an-hour.
F fact he larad doubted Dia-
ghilev's account and cabled Gunsbourg for confirmation.
Joud
He had/reason here since Diaghilev (wanting as always to
exploit Bakst's name for its publicity value) had des-
cribed.the cosume as the work of Bakst and not Benois.
It seemed clear that the Dowager Empress had not in fact
been shocked by Nijinsky's performance---apparently she had
told her family as the curtain went down that she had
never seen donstrns like it---but the worried director-
ate' of the Imperial Theatres had used her as an alibi.
Meanwhile Benois had returned to Diaghilev, now as hi
artistic director.
After visiting him at Montagnola
Diaghilev and Nijinsky had spent six weeks in Veniye,
then returned to Switzerland to visit Stravinsky at
Lausanne.
Before finishing his Firebird the previous
year the young composer had had a 'vision' of a 'solemn
pagan rite' in which elders, seated in a circle, watched
a young girl dance herself to death---this being part


of a 'spring sacrifice'.
He described it to Nicholas
Roerich, a specialist in 'pagan subjects; who became his
collaborator in this Sacre du Printemps.
But before
staring what would clearly be a long and difficult job
had
séravinsky/decided to compose a piece for piano and orch-
estra. It turned out to be rather bizarre.
Walking
by Lake Geneva one day he struggled to find a title for
it. Then it came: Petrouchka, the 'immortal and un-
happy hero of every fair in all countries'l Now Diaghil- hip.
knew
ev hrad already heard about the Sacre du Printemps and
was enthusiastic to hear the music.
Instead Stravinsky
played him Petrouchka.
Diaghilev 'was so much pleased
with it,' Stravinsky said, 'that he would not leave it
alone and began persuading me to develop the theme of
the puppet's sufferings and make it a whole ballet'.
They settled the scene of action---the fair, the booths
and the traditional puppet theatre, the magician with
his tricks, and the crowds.
There was no thought at
this stage ES casting Nijinsky as the puppet itself-
congidese
he was thougt
be more suitable for the magician. wilt leontov
e Petrouchka
Diaghilev wrote off to Benois about the idea
(knowing
that the subject would be irresistible for him) and
told him to 'stop sulking' and get down to work.
'Petrouchka, the Ryssian Guignol or Punch, no less than
Harlegquin', Benois wrote later in his life, 'had been
my friend since earliest childhood.
Whenepver I heard
the loud, nasal cries of the travelling showman: 'Here's
Petrouchka!
Come, good people, and see the show! I I
would get into a kind of frenzy to see the enchanting
performance'. (Starvinsky began composing the ballet
at greater length while Diaghilev went to Paris and
Disghiter
then London. In Paris b discussed with Reynaldo and
anottar
Cocteau their idea fory a new ballet, Le Dieu Bleu,
on an oriental theme, since this seemed to go down so
well in Paris. Cocteau incorporated some of the elements
of Firebird into the ballet, and no doubt that ballet
inspired him and his friends to find an equally power-
ful role for Nijinsky (who had once wanted to dance
the Bird of Fire himself---on points).
He, Reynaldo


Hahn, Diaghilev, Nijinsky and Bakst ate together at
Le Grand Vatel and worked out the ballet in some deatil.
They seemed to be worried that Astruc would 'leak' news
of the work (there were already rivals in the ballet field)
and they all undersigned a letter to him asking him 'not
to say a word to anyone - and 'especially about the poss-
ibility of including it in the Coronation celebrations'.
For, sponsored by the Marchioness of Ripon, Diaghilev
had negotiated a Covent Garden season, during which there
would be a Coronztion Gala performance before a gather-
igg of royal families from every part of Europe, not to
say the crème de la crème of England.
The marchioness
looked after her friends.
She knew that no artistic
enterprise could succeed in London, however dazzling,
without a sound social preparation.
The newcomers had
to be 'accepted', and this could only be done through
the 'right people'.
She once asked Karsavina to wear
a bunch of roses on her shoulder for a perforamnce on
fte
Queen Alexandra's Day, to gratify ber charity-minded
audience.
She was a serene and magnanimous creature---
later one of Nijinsky's most loyal friends---and had
her own private theatre at her home at Coombe.
Both
Hijinsky and Karsavina danced there before Queen Alex-
andra.
Another new ballet in preparation was L'Après-midi
d'un Faune, the first-fnuit of Nijinsky's new career as
choreographer.
He wanted steps that departed So radic-
ally from anything conceived by Petipa or even Fokine
that there was a danger of leaving himself without dance-
steps at all. The action was to take place in ancient
Greece, a kind of danced tableau on the theme of thean
adolescent youth waking for the first time to sexual
danced un suche way ast
experiencep, thie et would remind audiences of a Greek
frieze.
Nijinsky, helped by his sister Bronislava,
whole
devised only one jump in the/ballet. The other steps
resembled a heavy walk, two-dimensional in the sense
that the body faced the audience whmle the head and the
arms were in profile, moving in an angular way, rather


was
as if the frieze or bas relief hadbeer (in its two-
dimensional fixity. relatedvto the actual steps taken
the
auciëut
hip. by freek dancers Diaghilev must have been perplexed
Greece.
when the Nijinskys roughed out for him the elementary
steps. According to Stravinsky it was Pinphftar who
firt
had/suggested the idea of a faun pursuing amorous
nymphs, and Bakst had elaborated on this with his idea
of 'an animated bas-relief'.
It seems likely that
the Faune idea derived from Diaghilev's trip to Greece
with Bakst.
They discussed the recent discoveries at
Knossos, where they had been.
They agreed that Mallarmé's
Eclogue would be suitable, with the music Debussy had
written on it, a tone poem from twenty years before.
Apparently Nijinsky only knew of the existence of the
Mallarmé poem after Faune was completed.
Also Diaghilev
and Bakst supervised the choreography in the strictest
way. Both Stravinsky and Haskell claimed that Bakst
was even responsible fot the nature of the steps.
fact he and Diaghilev had the greatest difficulty getting
their meaning over to Nijinsky, as he himself had in
explaining the simplest steps to his dancers (this twelve-
minute ballet required 120 rehearsals). On the other
hand Romola always claimed that Nijinsky had hit on the
Faune idea in Karlsbad when he was staying there with
Diaghilev, and that later he demonstrated a few steps
I in the square at Venice. The idea of combining such A.p


a theme with such music must have seemed not simply
outrageous at the time but nonsensical.
Yet, by his
use of the adoleseent theme, Nijinsky transposed the
matter in such a way that even angular steps did not
seem to make war on the haunting and tender melody.
It was some time before the ballet would be performed.
As Bronislava expected, the 'die-hards' of Diaghilev's
committee Monttbe against it, led most
ably by
Bezobrazov. Diaghilev,wired Astruc in Februaty that
Spectre de la Rose would be replacing 'the Debussy'
for the 1911 season. The Spectre had been suggested to
Diaghilev the previous year by the French poet J.L.
Vaudoyer, and was adapted from a Gautier poem, the
music to be Weber's Invitation to the Waltz. Here
Nijinsky (as the spirit of the rose clutched by the
young girl---Karsavina--- -on her return from a ball)
made full use of his remarkable elevation, and it
became one of the most famous of the Fokine ballets.
Meanwhile Reynaldo Hahn was making headway with Le
Hakn
Dieuf Bleu. and Diaghilev invited/him to St Petersburg and
where on March 28 te gave a big dinner for him at
Cubat, with most of his committee, the Fokines,
Glazunov, Ichnerepnine, Liadov, Baron Benckendorff,
and Nijinsky and Karsavina.
The music for Le Dieu
Bleu was played in a four-hand form by Hahn and
Baron Medem, who taught at the Conservatoire, and


everyone seemed delighted.
But this ballet too was to
be delayed.
Contracts with the dancers were all signed, and there
even
wasla corps de ballet.
Maestro Cecchetti agreed to join
Diaghilev-(perhaps the greatest coup of all). - Dates for
Montecarlo, Rome, Paris, London and (tentatively). America
had been arranged. On March 15. Diaghilev cabled Astruc
that.-he-would-bein Paris in a few days, on Sunday, and
could they lunch together?
Three days laterhe left
St Petersburg with Nijinsky, and spent Saturday and Sun-
day in Paris.
Tcherepnine was to conduct the Montecarlo
Emile
season, and Diaghilev -had signed upl Cooper again and Gabriel
Pierné (who had conducted Flirebird so well) for Paris.
A wegk before Bakst had arrived to paint settings for Le a
Dieu Bleu and Le Spectre de la Rose. The Châtelet was
once more to be the theatre.
After several discussions
with Astruc on last-minute details, Diaghilev left for
Nice, where he arrived with Nijinsky on 21 March. (hey
met the Stravinskys' at" Beaulieu and heard the latest
Petrouchka music, and Diaghilev went to Montecarlo several
times to see the.manager of the opera house there and
rent an old theatre for rehearsals. Then hetook Nijinsky joined
shin
there to await the arrival of the rest of the company.
From the day of their arrival Maestro Cecchetti began drill-
hip.
ing the new dancers (not all of. whom had the St Petersburg
discipline) inot an identifiable company which Fokine could
rehearse more happily than otherwise, seeing that few of
the newcomers were familiar with his ballets. Les Sylphides hip.
Le Pavillon d'Armide, Schehérazade, Cleopatra, Carnaval, were He
lallela
I and Fokine was asked to start rehearsing a new ballet
called Narcisse immediatelsine season had started, as
well as prepare the choreography of Petrouchka, the music
of which he did not believe it possible to dance to.
Little wonder that, despite his incredible energy, he
seemed about to go mad. Narcisse, as it turned out,
did not
verr well.
It was another Greek subject:
broved EO,TEE
it was
casy to make Narcissus, who liked to look
at himself in the water, move about in a sufficiently int-


Bork Benoisand Fokine dilike Hettame
ersting way. Nijinsky was Narcissus, Karsavina Echo,
and Bacchante was danced by Bronislava, now a member of
the company.
Bakst did marvellous costumes for this,
and Karsavina's in particular---pleats of violet with
silver leaves, her hair hanging down her back, was
successfuti Diaghilev was blamed for bad taste over
the narcissus flower that wobbled into view on the end
of the stick after Narcissus himself had disappeared. Also
Nijinsky's leap onto the stage for his entrance created
a bad impression, as he rather crashed on the centre of
the stage, while his famous leap through the window in
Le Spectre de la Rose was always on to a mattress.
In Rome Petrouchka would have to be rehearsed,
and Le Dieu Bleu would have to be ready for Paris and
London.
Nerves became most tense, and once when Dia-
ghilev failed to pay Fokine on time the latper threapted
to jump out of his hotel window.
There was to be trouble
OE between Benois and Bakst.
Diaghilev was worried too
that the quality of his company was not on the level of
the previous Paris seasons.
He watched the rehearsals
carefully, and must have been grateful for the dametel
that the Montecarlo season afforded---he always called
Montecarlo from that time 'the dress rehearsal for Paris'.
The company's debut there was on 9April (1911), while
Le Spectre de la Rose was to be given first on the 19th.
The day before the first opening night Diaghilev went
up to Paris to confer with Astruc and persuade Bakst
(whom he temproarily regarded as a traitor) to leave
the sets he was painting for Ida Rubinstein and spend
two days at Montecarlo on Le Spectre de La Rose. h The
Montecarlo dress rehearsal went well, but Diaghilev took
Ex- Sing
i as a bad omen for scompany H act that the strage
Muratoti,, iin chorge
pullicis
- manager of the Théâtre de Montecarloswas killed when
he fell through the trap-door set open for the entrance
of the Nubians in Le Pavillon d'Armide. He could never
get such things out of his mind, though the season could
as Lt
not have gone betterk Ida Rubinstein came from Paris
Turned mt.
to play in Schénérazade and Cleopatra, and while she was
This tue Hre uue lo
betwea Kasavina aad N. msk
Dighilev
waudered alnt losthg
anal fattaly te fhu
X Dals Pak
San
C ae
Dreert
troubee He
a lace
brh
J dos
fostilit
the
abp
Stiphhha


there (for five days only) Fokine designed her St
Sebastian ballet, despite the fact that he was in the
middle of his worst difficulties over Narcisse.
It was Nijinsky's leap through the window in Le Spectre
that made the Comtesse de Noailles say that 'he seemed to
be painted on the ceiling'. EE indeed it was ony her
m aei ator
T TId ma
chestra
could nOL
The legend round Nijinsky's name was
now such that he hardly needed to appear to justify it.
When,âuring the Paris season, he hurt his leg and was
replaced by Alexander Gravilov the usual crowd surrounded
him in the wings afterwards to congratulate him, and some-
Lone even said that he had never danced better.
Diaghilev went ahead of the company to Rome on 5
May, and had arranged to give a number of ballets and
opera fragments as part of the Infternational Exhibition twe.
Whlenwas one The king and queen of Italy opened the
Russian section, and Serov was particularly successful.
Roman
Benois remembered that/period aftewards as 'radiant',
and the most poetical years he remembered af his youth.
Diaghilev and Nijinsky stayed at the Excfeslsior while
Benois and Strarinsky, working closely on Petrochka,
were at a hotel near the Quattro Fontane.
They roamed
about the city, and of course Diaghilev took Nijinsky
round the museums and the ruins armed as usual with his
Baedeker.
Yeers ater Hassine deseribed
S atways
mtezit
bent ever the bo0
Now
Terteket E
out
ese
La lo
Benois fed
a state of spiritual
ecstasy and everything seemed fresh'. The. Petrouchka
rehearsals went on in the buffet of the Teatro -Costanza
(where the company was to perform). It was already
frgfet
aad aifles
terribly hot, and the plae was shabby- with a dirty


spotted red carpet.
Everyone sweated, and Stravinsky
laboured at thepiano in his shirtsleeves. Diaghilev
looked tired but still immaculate (unlike Stravinsky
he kept his jacket on), as he watched from a hard-bagked
chair.
The Costanzi staff was as uncooperative as
that of the Paris Opéra, more sepcially as fyyms at
loggerheads with the World Exhibition committee which
had invited Diaghilev.
Backstage chaos threatened,
and Diaghilev had to take charge of the lighting cues
for Le Pavillon, in the lack of a technician.
Benois
had never seen him so nervous as when he took his place
below the stage with the switchboard in front of him.
ifecerlls, But he cued everything) from curtainrise throughgto the
opening of the trap-door. and all the intricate lighting
changes) impoccably.
During the day in Rome he would sometimes take his
'children', Nijinsky and Karsavina, for a drive round
the city or along the Via Appia Antica,and then deliver
them late for Cecchatti's class, with a word to the
€ maestro not to scold them.
XC e
rpet. Fokine and Stravinsky worked like
mad, all the- moré'so as Fokine found the music quite un-
congenial, though Benois was alwaysbthere to persuade
kkatyoar
him that it was only unfamiliar (Hater/on the Châtelet
orgchestra were-to laugh/openly when they read the score,
and Monteux their cônductor had great difficulty. restrain-
ing them from leaving the piy. As it happened,. the
Slavinsdlyy Paris audiençe absorbed)tire music almost unawares, be-
Permelha
cause the Dattet was so -packed-with strikigg movement,
quite apart brom the vivid story of a puppet coming to
life.
This was -Nijinsky's favourite, perhaps his
ToCe
greatest pert -Really the funfairs of St Petsrburg
were an imitation of those in western Europe, but they
had something almost demonic about them which the ballet
captured.
Benoi awn
ront


moved
ea sarts meadowt wheref
T ained
1bs
unt
success in Paris was stupendous.
ieemed to
Nijinsky and Karsavina actually) became dolls, he seeming-
tortued by having a human intelligence, a
helpless
victim, while she Was utterly thoughtless and soulless.
This was in bitter contrast to the gay scene with its
nurses in full brightly coloured skirts and the stall-
keepers and the coachmen, policemen, cossacks and nobility.
hip.
'I have seen no one approach Nijinsky's rendering of
Petrouchka', Cyril Beaumont said. 'He suggested a puppet
that sometimes aped a human being, whereas all the
otherf interpreters conveyed a dancer imitating a puppet.
He seemed to have probed the very soul of the character
with astonishing intuition.
Did he, in one of his dark
moods of introspection, feel conscious of a strange
parallel between Petrouchka and himself, and the Showman
and Diaghilev?'
For in the ballet it is the Showman
who gives the signal for the puppets to dance, and who
kicks Petrouchka on to the stage through the cell-doors.
Petrouchka toptters forward as if in great pain. Nijinsky
flung up his arms and threw back his head to express this
pain.
Again Cyril Beaumonet: 'How vividly he present-
ed this despair, his unhappiness, his misery, as he fing-
ered and plucked at his clothes, the symbol of his serv-
itude.
Then he sank on his knees, and, with his stiff
arms, now bent at the elbow, struck hisneck first on one
side and then on the other in a state of utter dejection
at his pitiful lot'. It,was. this ballet---not in spite
hip.
of the strange discrepancy_ between the music-and the
steps, or the uncomfortable nature of the dancing, or
the apparently non-balletic theme, but because of them--
Hotel
that personified pho)DinghilevBalet rather than. the
previous visiting company- from the Imperial Theatres.
Here, again, the touch of Benois was felt in the vividly
living application of sound historical ideas. Perfunctoriy
performed, the ballet is nothing.
In its firstpproduct-
ion it captured all that the west meant by 'Russian',
but now-in the light of what.Diaghilev had taught t the wert,


not the 'exotic' any more but powerful animgal spirits
harnessed by sparkling intelligence, - P
altbut define
fer T
geatre Compared with this,
Sadko and Narcisse made little impression.
Sadko was
a somewhat messed-aboutexcerpt from Rimsky-Korsakov's
opera, the scene of the under-water kingdom.
The
music was rearranged, and the setting and costumes were
by Boris Anisfeld.
Schéhérazade was re-staged for
hew
these seasons, and Serov painted a specialycurtain that
was lowered during the overture, whichhad previonsty
HEE:
mere
It showed a hunt across pink hills,
and glittered like a Persian miniature.
In all senses
ni p.
now
the Diaghilev ballet had/ established itself, which was
why, far more than even Lady Ripon's activities, it was
cn 21
at the
invited to perform, 2before the king and queen of Englandfeitt Polortsia
Gvent
That was an extraordinary affair, for both the audience Dance,
Crarden
and the ballet company.
The dancers were astonished at Pavillm
the luxurious aspect of the auditorium, filled with
Carnaval.
maharajas in their glittering jewellery, and brightly
uniformed officers, and men in evening dress with decor-
ations and ribands, and women with their tiaras. No
royal house in Europe could produce a spectacle of this
3 kind at the time: it already had an old-world aspect.
In fact London as a whole had an 'old world' aspect to
those who visited it from the Continent. an
The massive social and industrial upheavelas of the last
decades of the previous century were not at first glance
visible, especially in London.
There was still, accord-
ing to Benois, an atmosphere of 'wit and perfect taste'.
London was the home of the best-dressed men in Europe.
The ginger ale tasted 'divine', and if you were lucky
you might find good food in a pub.
There was a feeling
of peace and repose---as always in England this mingled
with a certain feckless insularity.
Sunday was a dead
day, but monstrously dead, and all you heard were organ
grinders and mechanical pianos.


There were flowers everywherer Over the royal box (Em the thenlre.
there was the huge word INDIA in flowers, as a tribute
to the loveliest flower of the British Empire. The
performance itself was if anything outshone, since it
audifortiun
consisted only of one scene from Le Pavillon where the
tapestry comes alive)
Benois hed designed special
costumes for this performance, atone, having been given
wantol.
carte blanche by Diaghilev to spend as much as he needed
The audience responded in what was for the Russians an
They
unprecedented way---hardly at all. Everyone clapped
mildly, mostly with gloved hands, and there were the
usual exchanges in the royal box afterwards between He
principal dancers and the king and queen.
The fact that, according to Diaghilev, at least a
hundred dowagers sparkling with diamonds walked out of
the Polovtsian Dances (the first ballet of the evening),
complaining that it was just savagery not dancing,
seemed to make no difference to the success or the
newspaper acclaim next day.
London seemed an ideal place for Diaghilev.
It was intimate, rather like Montecarlo, while present-
ing an impression of enormous power. Paris was feverish,


sensational, in comparison.
The Times for June 24
described the Russian impact succinctly as a matter far
beyond technique---perfect as their technique was.
'In Russia... . the ballet has been essentially an autocratic
institution, maintained...for the use of the cultivated
classes.
It has not depended for its existence on giving
immediate pleasure (the bane of all democratic art) and
therefore has not had to husband the imaginative energies
of the spectators but, on the contrary, has been able to
pursue the proper aim of all art---to trouble and exert
their imagination.'
Russian ballet-dancing never for a
moment escaped from its 'subjection to ideas---and, moreover,
to artistic ideas, ideas, that is, conceived at a high
pitch of emotional intelligence.'
Diaghilev settlea at the Wardorf, then moved to the
Savoy, where the grill-room became his nightly meeting-
place. Lady Ripon invited the entire company down to
Coombe to rest.
The English seemed not to prejudge the
Russian psychology as the Parisians had: they even under-
stood Tchaikowsky.
the E Ban had by now seen Anna
Pavlova and her company, not to mention Karsavina and
Lydia Kyasht, and the resident Adeline Genée. 'You can
trust those English friends, - Diaghilev once said.
"With them absence makes no difference.'
He found the
stagehands respectful and hard-working---though the
lighting equipment at Covent Garden was distinctly inad-
equate.
He also began at this time to recruit English
dancers into his company, as Pavlova did into hers, and
he said that after the Russians they had the most aptit-
ude for dancing, and would one day have a valid school
of their own.
The English dancer was fairly easy to
handle too---1ittle temperament'.
Hilda Munnings,
one of the English recruits, graduated from the corps
de ballet to become one of the company's finest dancers.
Alone of the foreigners in the company she 'became a
Russian', learned the language quickly and continued
with Diaghulev for years.
E later yours Diaghilev became rather irritated


their
with Ehglish conservatism, L ptaip lack of what the
Italians call 'salt', compared with the Continent:
E while HE London audiences were loyal, they were also,
compared with the Parisians, uncritical.
He needed Paris.
Nowhere else could the Russian Ballet have become establish-
The English were good, like all imperial peoples, at
supporting what hat already been given the accolade else-
where.
During his London season he received a shower of
offers from every part of Europe for future dates.
signed up for 1912 dates in Germany, Austria and Hungary,
apart from London, Paris and Montecarlo.
The Covent Garden management invited him for a second
season in the autumn of 1911, a longer one, and his repert-
oire for this was Cleopatra, Les 'Sylphides, Le Spectré de
la Rose and Le Lac des Cygnes, dor Diaghilev) was already
aware of English çonservatism and omitted his 'advanced'
ballets. Le Lac' des Cynges was his way of, making amends
to the beloved Tchaikowsky, still more or less barred in
Paris. He reduced the ballet, first. performed at the
Marynsky theatre in1895 (and -still today on the Bolshoi
repertoire), to two acts instead of four, beginning with
the second act at the lake-side. He borrowed Anna
Pavlova from the, British impresario Alfred. Butt for this
season, while Karsavina returned to St Petersburg to
fulfil her contract with the Marynsky, and Kshesinskaya
came over to dance Odette in Le Lac des Cygnes. Here
at last was this 'fighter of charm and intelligence', as ke
once
calledly
dancing for him: DiaghilevJintroduced her to Arnold
Haskell with, 'Voilà un adversaire bien Aigne de moi'.
That, too, was a sign of how successfully he had estab-
lished himself.
For Kshesinskaya never made a social
error by supporting a cause that looked like losing.
She was rather laughed-at in Diaghilev's circle, espec-
an a
Bakst, and /made them feel the absence of
Idancriks
ially
Karsavina,


Rer rle -)
especially when
danced Zobeida in Schéhérazade,
though she was wonderful as Columbine in Carnaval.
She travelled like royalty, with het own doctor as well
as the Grand Duke André Vladimirovitch, and brought all
was
her jewellery, which were placed in the custody of the
jewellers Fabergéo Bach evening she would ask,
FORLA specilly
certain numberg to wear from the two catalogués they had L
drawn up of her treasures.
She too stayed at the Savoy.
wheu
Hotet Onethe evening/she dined :with her diadem on
the hotel manager arranged for two plainclothes police-
Rer:
a reighbneiy
men to guardi they sat dining at the ex table in
desgres
tails. She danced in Le Lac)in three performances.
Diaghilev had (on a quick visit to St Petersburg back
in October) purchased the Moscow production of the ballet,
which included over one hundred costumes.
At this
time he was signing up future dates in order to provide
himself with production-capital, sine he always asked a tenle
immediala
for an/advance. Le Lac did not go down all that well,
but then neither did Giselle.
As in Paris, it was
Schénérazade that got the acclamationg.
After that
an old-style Petipa ballet was bound to seem strangely
tor
unsuitable E such an 'advanced' company.
Diaghilev
had definitely miscalculated in thinking that London
audiences would go for the 'classical' repertoire.
Like the Parisian audiences, they wanted something more
than perfect dancing.
And apparently London was not
above sensationalism either.
The scandal he seemed at this time to need came
with the performance of Faune in Paris the following
year.
He revelled in it, except at the very beginning,
when it looked as if Parisian taste might turn against
him, with the national press behind it. From Appril
on excitement about Faune had grown in Paris, starting
among Bakst's artist friends.
Diaghilev got hold of
a newspaper report that Fokine was to handle Faune
and at once sent an infurtiated telegram to Astruc
telling him that Nijinsky had refused to take
as a. enull-
any
H a
further part in the
not have been
falce
ballet/(which may
may
bort
true. By this time Fokine had decided to leave the


company, realising that Nijinsky was being groomed as
the future choreopgraphic director, andwas getting more
and more of Diaghilev's attention.
Tremendous rows went
on about the number of rehearsals Nijinsky needed (with
Diaghilev's support) for his ballet, and naturally Fokine
insisted on similar partiality when it came to his own
productions.
But because of Faune he was obliged to
Ravel',
prepare) /Daphmis and Cloes which-Dlaghileviadcommissions
Ravet after he had finished Le Dieu Bleu and
Thamar, So that e1 altet could only be given at the end
of the Paris seasonn for two performances.
Fokine
stormed at Grigoriev, who could not have been less partial
to one side or the other. He began to suspect that
D+aghilev's closest associates were in a conspiracy against
him. Above all, he did not believe that Nijinsky had
a major choreographer in him. This was corroborated later
by Ansermet, who conducted Faune in Rio, when he said
that Nijinsky never realised to what extent he was under
the daily stimulus of 'the insatiable Diaghilev!".
'illusion of culture' envelopd him while he was at Diaghil-
ev's side, and 'gave birth to aspirations which his intell-
ect was incapable of realising' once he was removed from
that fountain of new ideas.) ke ma
eepte
A - a A ional L
ater independent
tay recause
et Euarantee
Ist being jud 6 a
consentionel
sked stateof
shock Fokine, with his vast experience, must have seen
the early signs of this, and he was even less happy with
the 'new steps' being devised by Nijinsky in collusion
with Diaghilev to displace his own styles than he had been
with Stravinsky's music.
Nor did Diaghilev's homosexuality
helpea. It was probably much more the background of his
quarrels with Bakst and Benois than we realise.
And it
produced ballets like Narcisse and Le Dieu Bleu. The
latter might well have seemed to Fokine a homosexual
conspiracy to glorify Nijinsky, and the failure of his
choreography to evoke a convincing India may have been
which
due to the resentment of Nijinsky jhe was already feeling.
And then there was Faune, the noise over which eclipsed


all the other ballets of the season except Thamar), the
story of a Georgian Cleopatra, to music by Balakirev,
which took its place at the side of Schéhérazade and the
Prince Igor dances.
Yet even here, in Thamar, Fokine's
choreography did not shine out like Bakst's set or Kar-
savina's interpretation.
There was nothing 'new' in it.
Nothing could have been worse for an overworked choreo-
graphic director than a manager wheseremedtoobe press-
ing for the new at the costsof E
etse
Faune
was certainly that. More than any other ballet itndivied
divided Diaghilev from his committee. In fact it broke
the committtee up. The World of Art days came to an
abrupt end. Fromthss time Diaghilev changed collabor-
ators rapidly.
LAprès-midi afun Faune had its opening on May29.
It was a simple, even perfunctory story, about a faun
who sees a number of nymphs dancing together and begins
item
to chase, inflamed with adolescent desire.
He seizes
one of their veils, and his last act is to take the veil
Hjnkki
on to a hiildr and lie down on it. He then made an
erotic movement of his buttocks, seeming for a moment to
make love to the veilf/betore the curtain fell., The
eurhythmics of Jacques Dalcroze, which Diaghilev and
Nijinsky had seen at Hellerau, had left their mark on
the dancing, which contained no classical steps or
positions, dispensed with points altogether and with
the traditional turned-out'position n'of the feet. The
dancers moved flat-footed, and Nijinsky made not so
much as one leap. The
watched with close
Lyig do audience un CnTA
veil
attention, in silence. Whenthe ant
went-down
When it came doun
there was "an uproar. Diaghilev was visibly shaken,
but there seemed to be some approving calls among the
raspberries and he ordered the curtain to be rung up
again for a repeat of the entire ballet.
When the
curtain fell on the second performance there was more
applause than after the first.
It looked as if he had
done the right thing.
Stories differ about the nature of that erotic
movement.
Prince Argoutinsky told Prince Lieven that


one of the clusters of grapes on Nijinsky's costume,
made of glass, broke during the performance and that
his quick movement after he had laid himself down was
to atoid being hurt.
This may indeed have been the story
put out by the management afterwards, but there is no
evidence of Nijinsky wearing glass on his person that
evening.
According
Grigoriev, the movement was re-
tod been
hearsed, and Diaghilev Was warned that it would cause
trouble.
Most-probabl:
et invent themovement
IT arte
notcare.
hip
ARE the episode would have passed off into gossip had not
Calmette, the editor of Le Figaro, 2 decided to lift it
o tt
lilev Co
into prominence by an attack,
tat
- ginal
bout the
A a
caused storm.
Sadora
nca
OsE ram
commit tee used
denote somethi
bac
hed-been-the real. -pieneer here.
he bex offiee
benefited from she pubil
rext few days-and
aboveall
insky was nched as ehereegrepher.
That Diaghilev war
Hreeti eenseiousof the publicity
velueof the seandal was shown-when-he tried tewerkup
a eph
R HS
HHOW
mer there
The garo article
- Calnettehiuself was under
the heading Un Faux Pas: 'Our readers will not find,
in its accustomed place under Theatre, the criticism
of my worthy collaborator, Robert Brussel, upon the
first performance of L'Après-midi d'un Faune, choreo-
graphic scene by Nijinsky, directed and danced by that
astonishing artist. I have eliminated that review...
Those who speak to us of art and poetry apropos of this
spectacle make fun of us. It is neither a gracious
eclogue, nor a profound production.
We saw a faun,
incontinent, vile---his gestures of erotic bestiality
and heavy shamelessness.
That is all. And well-
deserved boos greeted this too expressive pantomime
of the body of an ill-made beast, hideous from the
front, even more hideous in profile.
These animal


realities the true public will never accept'.
His
was not the only paper to attack the ballet.
In Le
Temps Pierre Lalo wrote, 'The production of the Faune
is a great error in itself: nothing can relieve the
glaring contradiction between the slavish archaism and
hardcast rigidity of the choreography and the flexible
flow of Debussy's prelude or Mallarmé's poem---both so
alien and distant in their attempt to interpret antiqu-
ity'. The artciles threw Diaghilev's committee into
disorder, and there were ardent discussions in his hotel
suiteas to what the repercussions would be.
Someone
from the Russian Embassy called to say that Calmette
and the Figaro had used the Russian Ballet as a scape-
goat for their disapproval of the impending Franco-
Russian entente.
Still, the embassy was worried that
a ballet might conceivably interfere with the entente,
and---especially after police intervention---Diaghilev
struck out the erotic movement on subsequent nights.
The situation was saved, or at least mitigated, by
Rodin, who published an article defending Nijinsky in
Le Matin. He wrote that in no role was Nijinsky 'so
marvellous and admirable as in L'Aprres-midi d'un
Faune. No jumps, no bounds, nothing but attitudes
and gestures of a half-conscious animal-creature.
He stretches himself, bends, stoops, crouches, straight-
ens himself up, goes forward and retreats, with movements
now slow, now jerky, nervous, angular; his eyes spy, his
arms extend, his hands open and close, his head turns
away and turns back.
The harmony between his mimicry
and his plasticity is perfect... He possesses the
beauty of the antigue frescoes and statues: he is the
ideal model for whom every painter and sculptor has
longed.. : .Nothing could be more soul-stirring than his
movement when, at the close of the act, he throws himself
down and passionately kisses the discarded veil.'
Gaston
Calmette answered this with an attack on Rodin, but he
did publish Diaghilev's letter with its enclosure from
Odilon Redon, Mallarmés close friend, praising the


ballet.
The argument petered out but left the Faune,
not at all a major work, famous.
Rodin offered to do a portrait of Nijinsky, and it
wasarranged that the dancer should go to him after his
morning classes.
Usually Diaghilev took him along.
Sitter and sculptor often had lunch together and rested
afterwards (after a taste of Rodin's excellent Burgundy).
Diaghilev became quite disturbed by the growing friend-
ship between themt- --more perhaps than he would have
if his OHR relationship with Nijinsky had been going
well. One day he found them fast alseep together on
the same couch.
He woke Nijinsky and took him away
at once, and thesittings werd curtailed, the sculpture
never finished.


her argimentpetered TouT
0 TE
I I -
Lamous.
Fokine left, to return to the Marynsky.
claimed that Nijinsky had stolen from his own faun dance
in the Venusberg scene of the opera Tannhauser whion(Ni-
dancedin tis
jinsky had once derfe a merd at the Marynsky Not that he
objected to this: but the Faune work was not original,
as it claimed to be.
On the other hand, Nijinsky's
'archaic, angular choreography' suited Debussy's music,
he felt, and had none of the later 'rhythmic gymnastics'
of Nijinsky's work.
'Loving the ballet, Fokine said,
'striving always for new discoveries, I would have welcomed
the work of Nijinsky had it contained more definite inn-
ovations and had its debut not been saddened by the scand-
alous filth.'
Above all, he felt that his own Daphnis
and Cloe was sacrificed to the Faune quite unnecessarily.
Diaghilev had wanted to postpone the opening of Daphnis
and curtail the rehearsals, and even asked Fokine's wife
Fotiie gaue Rer
use
Rutreed-
her influence
he matter, for which/ she gotla
wig in her ear. She argued that he only had three days
left, and there were still twenty pages of music to chor-
eograph.
'Leave me alone!' he told her, and promptly
worked out the finale.
When he showed it to Diaghilev,
the latter said (according to Fokine 'with disappointment)
'Yes, you have managed it very quickly and well'.
The
fact that Diaghilev had scheduled the première of Daphnis
as a curtain raiser and set the beginning of the pefform-
ance thirty minutes earlier than usual seemed to Fokine
proof that he wanted the auditorium to be empty. He
blew up, began screaming abuse at Diaghilev after the
last rehearsal.
He told him what he thought of his
relationsghip with Nijinsky.
He said that the ballet
company was turning from art to 'perverted degeneracy'.
And he threatened to walk onstage before the cHutain rose
on Daphnis and explain everything to the firsthight
audience.
Diaghilev gave in and put Daphnis after
Schéhérazade.
As to the company, they seemed divided
between the pro-Nijinsky faction and the pro-Fokine


faction.
According to Fokine, Nijinsky forbade any
fim
of the dancers to present Hekine with a farewell gift
after he had announced his resignation.
After that
first performance of Daphnis Fokine left the theatre
wihtout saying goodbye to anyone.
With his wife he
went to a pearby restaurant but they were too distraught
to eat. hen they returned to the Hotel des Deux
Mondes jate found a group of the company's dancers stand-
in the foyer with flowers and a vase to present to him.
Grigoriev was not there.
Nor were 'the Poles' in the
company (meaning above all Nijinsky and his sister).
- Fokie wm Full Aresewmnt tewed,, Nemce wnt thee)
He had never had a disagreement with Diaghilev about
Rad
ballet because, he said, Diaghilev hadAno decided views
(had Re Riaphilev
on the subject! Hedever onceyteard - L4 a support anye
theories or special trends during the five years
Tel Itr:
theyworked
se + * #E him,
'Good taste?
Certainly.
He spoke
about it---but then again, not about his own taste on most
cases, but about the taste of the audience which was
about to be 'introduced to our presentation'. 'Paris
will go crazy about Petrouchka'.
'The public will be
dazzled by the Polovtsian Dances,' or 'Give Tchaikowsky
in Paris?
Impossible!
Paris does not tolerate
Tchaikowsky'---such categorical appraisals, always lean-
ing on the taste of others, the likes and dislikes of
the 'patrons', very often issued from the lips of Sergei
Pavlovitch Diaghilev. Onthe subject of music he
spoke for himself (always after consulting numerous
musical authorities), but I never heard him venture an
opinion on the subject of the dance'.
That is a harsh
appraisal, quite different from Karsavina's.
the facts are against it.
Diaghilev talked constantly
about the dance with Nijinsky, Massine, Dolin, Lifar--
all his major dancers.
He wrote to the papers about it.
He let Fokine go because he had most decided views about
the dance which Fokine no longer satisfied.
And who


was it who attracted artists to his dinner table, his
reherasal studios, his hotel suites?
Not, obviously,
a man with nothing to say for himself.
In fact these
artists Hr
bem he did not invite to work with
Diego
him (likel Rivera) were bitterly hurt and disappointed,
such was the weight of his taste and ES mind.
Fokine was a busy man, far more than a human being should
be---devising choreography, rehearsing the company and fin-
ally performing himself.
It left him no time for con-
versation, much less artistic disagreements on matters
of the latest ballet trends.
With Fokine, Diaghilev
talked exclusively like a producer, since he had to see
that thebal1ftAs being rehearsed attracted people to
the box office.
And like so many theatre-directors, those
te feared dictators of a little world beyond the prosc-
enium arch, too busy to know any other, Fokine identified
tke
disagreement with disobedience.
The point was that/Fokine
choreography was reaching the end of its road.
It had
released Russian dancing from conventions that had become
absurd.
In Nijinsky it had found its supreme executant,
among the male dancers.
And yet it was Nijinsky above
all who, dancing the Fokine roles, had begun to feel that
there was a certain lack of truth at the core of the move-
ments.
This was what caused him---together with, most
probably under the stimulus of, Diaghilev---to announce
a preference for less 'graceful' forms, not because grace
was itself untruthful but because in Fokine's work require-
ments of pattern and symmetry (though convincing, unlike
the former Petipa arrangements) still determined the move-
ment, whereas the truth of the plot and above all the
individual emotion should determine it.
It was the
character that counted.
Nijinsky wanted to take into
choreographic consideration the human predicament of not
enty each character sut each group---the predicament that


made movement essential to it as a release and an
expression.
Fokine never expressed feeling in this
direct way. He mimed it often enough, and certainly
evoked it.
In his post-Faune work Nijinsky, far more
than any choreographer before him, related movement to
feeling with demoniac thoroughness, so that miming now
longer appeared
a crude device.
This is
ecessary,
why he negded so many reherasals.
Diaghilev realised
that Nijinsky was plotting, with much effort and pain,
even
being neigher a born choreographer nora good stage
director, something that needed to be done in ballet,
quite apart from whether it was going to be artistically
successful or not.
As so often in his life, Diaghilev
expressed fidelity to one person by infidelity to
another.
But it was Nijinsky who proved unfaithful. In


met his future wife, Romola.
the
was datuated with Im,
ared Tieverywhereand
managed to get herself enrolled n the
She
lived in Budapest, the daughter of the distinguished de
Pulszky family, and was invited to the first peformance
in tat cils.
of the Diaghilev company/in the spring of 1912. During
Januer
Dresden
e Germans) them Tiema and
udapest
'The city', Romola wrote in her biography of
her husband, 'was in a great state of excitement.
Fant-
astic tales of the glamorous, exotic beauty, and of the
attainment of great heights of artistic achievement,
had preceded this unique company.'
In Carnaval she saw
Nijinsky for the first time: 'Suddenly a slim, lithe,
cat-like Harlequin took the stage... An electric shock
passed through the entire audience.
Intoxicated, en-
gaanced, gasping for breath, we followed this superhuman
being, the very spirit of Harlequin incgrnate'.
She
- gained access to the rehearsals, and here she saw Diagh-
ilev for the first time.
He stood in a group of other
men, talking, in the dim light of the auditorium,"his
hat drawn down over his ears' (quite impossible for Dia-
given
ghiley, since his head) Has O I sormous), and his coat
siges
collar turned up.
'This man seemedto be the real auth-
ority in every
organisation.
His mere
branchhorhte
presence made one feel that he was not only a versatile
and gifted director, but also a grand seigneurv Every-
one obeyed him blindly...
He was the master magician
of the Russian Ballet'. For Diaghilev, in so far as
he noticed the lovely young creature at all, Romelw was


just one more of the infatuated creatures male dancers
attracted round them.
Hemould
have admi tet her
we company rad
OSS D
respond-
Even the principal dancerghardly
noticed her existence, until of coure they were on the
engaged
boat to Buenos Aires and Nijinsky became en e to her.
All Karsavina knew of her was her 'charming voice' and
'the sweet name of Romola' at the wedding ceremony and
the lunch (for the entire company) that followed.
Diaghilev had overlooked the fact that 'theatre companies
love to pertect and nurture an incipient romance in
their midst'. And he and Nijinsky were already falling
apart.
In London Faune was not rigked that year.
Diaghilev
and Nijinsky now had their English friends, among them
Hac
Lady Duff and Lady Ottoline Morrell, courageously bizarre cvealure
with her great hats, beautiful, long, gracious 'like a
giraffe', as Nijinsky once said---to her face.
She and
her husband were his favourites, together with the Bradley
Martins, an American couple who played a large part in
London's social life at the time. Lady Juliet Duff had
difficulty talking to Nijinsky as he/only knewltwo words of Eng-


lish, 'Piccadill' as he called it and 'Littler', which
comedian meant thelcomic Little Tich,fwhom he and Diaghilev always
loued 15
saw
ener
r performp
e + I endon
The two of them visited Lady Morrell for tea
at her house in Bedord Square, and she found Nijinsky
'nervous and highly strung'.
His 'guardian and jiailer',
as she called Diaghilev, rarely let him out into society
because it tired him so much.
But Lady Morreal's place
was 'all right' because it was quiet and you could meet
other artists there.
It was in London that the new
ballet Les Jeux was conceived. Tfr was all Nijinsky's
idea.
He was dead set against the pretty' ballets,
and even got annoyed if people praised his part in Le
Spectre de la Rose.
He wanted angular, virile, tense
movements against the rounded forms of classical ballet.
As he advanced his ideas for the new ballet at lunch-
table in the Savoy Grill Diaghilev looked rather cross,
Stared uubelierig ple
biting his fingers, while Bakst à C
amaz EU at the
drawings Nijinsky made on the table to depict his ballet
about a game of tennis (he had seen Duncan Grant playing


in the Bedford Square gardens, from Lady Morrell's
window).
And it was to be to the music of Debussy!
It was to be 'cubist'.
There was to be no corps de
ballet, no ensembles, no variations, no pas de deux,
only rhythmic movements, with boys and girls dressed
in tennis clothes.
He and Diaghilev were disagreeing
a lot lately. Once, when Nijinsky refused to accom-
him
pany,to the house of Juliet Duff's mother, Diaghilev
sat in the garden with tears pouring down his face,
'and would not be comforted'.
On another occasion,
when they were all lunching together at the Savoy,
Diaghiley told a long story, at the end of which Ni-
simply
jinskyAnooked up and said in French, 'Long story but
poor'. Jacques Emile Blanche, to. whom Diaghilev por-
posed the Jeux ballet (with_seeming reluctance), con-
tacted Debussy to write the music but he refused-
saying it was an ifiotic and unmusical idea.
Nijinsky
threatened to stop dancing, and Diaghilev doubled Debuss-
y's fee.
Cyril Beaumongt's recollection of the ballet
when it was performed in London was hazy afterwards (and
he saw it twice. He felt sat
Fe at could have
been about any sport, since there was no clear reference
to tennis in any of the movements.
In fact, there was
little dancing at all,.
There were 'occasional leaps
and bounds and turning movements borrowed or adapted
from the classical ballet, but, for the most part, the
ballet was concerned to express the theme of adolescence
by a combination of plastic symbolism and taut, angualr
poses'.
Jacques-Emile Blanche thought theat the score
was bad. And the dancers moved rather like automata.
The ballet was withdrawn from the repertoire after five
performances.
There were now constant scenes in the company:
no doubt everyone could feel a divided directorate.
Benois was mostly in St Petersburg these days, and
Hot Hat
took no part in the 1912 seasons.
Diaghilev had not
quarrelled with him again but he seemed to want to be
free of the 'old guard', or rather those who had force-
Screcsed
Karsavena hadl may diffe
la reheanal. - 'As ( had E kerf humn Kead
ade bok Raud C
1 a
Cas cho haimedl fron birtk
mCd Lau
on me
hue klnow haliv war i 1
Nijunes war
be hs uxplaci.
Relped


Serov W a dead, tuol Beyckmgev had
sa died recently ) diaberz i Malicarlo.
Diaghile
ie hen Ke could
ihilit
ful ideask bbose-hn-mumkd/still work with, like Bakst
plans fn
and Stravinsky, were not
Busehgaged ls K
Boris
an stini
feachers).
Romanot, the Moscow ballet master, to replace
Red mce
Fokine,whu bupil
beu,
A viluton
f (and work started on a new ballet, Salome, with music by
eith :e
inevilahe Florent Schmitt ad the setting by Serge Sudeikine.
elementy This was a solo dance by Karsavina in a fantastic costume
Keu was
isecuns, with a long train--jsurrounded by negro slayes. That
too rather failed when it came to be
Poyarbly
L niky
seen. indit may came
culy
ndicule:
ontyhave_come into being/to stop Karsavina feeling that
Radbeer
too much atgention WESy being given to Nijinsky.
At the same time the Russian Ballet was at the height
of its social desirability.
In Paris, during the Châtelet
season, Mme Ephrussie, the Maharajah of Kapurthala and
Misia Edwardes had given fêtes after fêtes for them.
In London the Aga Khan gavé a garden party for the king
and queen at which Karsavina and Nijinsky danced a
variation.
Diaghilev asked 15000 gold francs for
Nijinsky, who danced for four minutes.
After the London
the company was invited to celebrate the opening of the
fashionable new resort of Deauville in France with a short
season.


The new ballet that aroused hopes was Stravinsky's
Le Sacre du Printemps. He had great misfgivings about
working with Nijinsky, having seen him at work on Faune.
They were great ftiends, and he admired Nijinsky as a
dancer and mime.
But 'his ignorance of the most element-
ary notions of music was flagrant. The poor boy knew
nothing of music... HTs reactions to music were express-
ed in banal phrases or the repetition of what he had
heard others say'. Yet Diaghilev still seemed hopeful
of making a ballet-master out of him.
As before, Nijin-
sky began asking for untold rehearsals.
Stravinsky had
to buckle down and teach him the rudiments of music--
from crotchets to tempig. It was hard work, and Nijin-
sky had the greatest diffuculty observing tempi with the
steps he was working out. He was also quite unable--
as Ansermet saw---of explaining what he wantedeto the his
dancers.
Stravinsky had to travel all over Europe with
the company So as to keep some kind of guiding hand on
the preparations.
Nijinsky seemed to understand that he
was losing face in the company, though he was still supp-
orted in everything by, Diaghilev, and this made him
preumptuous, cappricous, and unmanageable'.
Yet he
was not really responsible for the predicament he was in.
That was Diaghilev's doing, and Stravinsky often spoke Cohplaind
to him. abrut
ISA
B taet
But Diaghilev felt
(encouraged by the marvellous effects Nijinsky now and
then achieved, mainly by the method of improvisation)
that it was only a matter of time and training.


The première of Le Sacre was to be the most important
event of the 1913 season in Paris, which would take place
h augu urals
L a
fact,Tepon---Astruc's Théâtre des Champs
Elysées,
Lew tealk
ier Ln
city
To be lured from the
Opéra, Diaghilev extracted the fabulous sum of 25,000 françs
Asime
lonp. hufge hu
for each performance from/him, which involved
mpresarie in
A the heavist loss of his carreer.
Boris Godunov was to be
Seen
Tver again, and oncemore Daphnis and Cloe was to be
its
recond
given E chance. fonce o de
dwned
eanda 1
Sacre was more in the nature of a valid
in view S
shock,
Stravinsky's disturbingly
Hton
Faure, relentléss music.
The theme of the 'chosen maiden'
who must dance herself to death as an offering to the
goddess of fertility was no less relemtless. The
first-night audience watched and listened angrilyland
rebelliously.
Theurchestra had laughed-during rehears
ts and thadmereded A - theconducton
keep
aem
paces
From the first notes they audi
went m
began hissing and shouting.
And they en A E
shouting
throughout the ballet.
The smart crowd became rough in
places, pushing and fighting each other.
Diaghilev
ordered the house-lights on and off severa
E as
the orchestra could not be heard. BE Maria Piltz
as the chosen maiden forced a respectful reaction to her
delirious and overwhelming dance. For Cyril Beaumont,
when he saw it later in London, it succeeded in creating
an atmosphere of savagery, with something religious about
as well
itz And it was 'a tremendous shock' after the romantic
beauty of Fokine's ballets.
'It was so extraordinary
that Nijinsky, the personification of grace and a true
child of the air, should replace speed and elevation by
slow; uncouth movements in which the dancers were So
seemingly obsessed by the reath that they appeared
unable to stand upright. Stravinsky's music, with its
insistent, throbbing rhythm, emphasised by the dancers'
feet pounding on the stage, became as irresistible and
dominating as the remorpseless thudding of the drum which
sets the atmopsphere for O(Neill's The Emperor Jones.
The music and choreography of the Sacre were united not


bysteps danced to notes, but by the immense force of
ho 2
rhythm'. Clearly, Stravinsky's musical schooling of
Nijinsky had been effective.
Again the steps were in
of classical ballet, with inturned toes feok
and opposing movements between one group and another.
Here Nijinsky had made his own choreography: Diaghilev
interfered and advised little.
And the result was a
disturbingly new work, so 'starkly primitive', so 'brutal
in its movements', in Beaumont's words, that many people
found it repellent.
One of these was the Dowager Count-
ess de Pourtalès, who swept out of the theatre saying telling Astrc
that if this kind of tomfoolery was repeated she would
nevr
his Hhealte
not be seen at Astruc
D E ishment again.
For an
opening that was not good news.
People in the audience jumped on their seats and
yelled. At the same time those under the hypnotic
influence of the throbbing rhythm stood up to see more aud Slavnsky
clearly.
Diaghilev want un to the gallery and called Lad k Lldkin
below
hach fm Ite
put to the audience, 'Je vous prie! Laissez s'achever
sges
le spectacle!' Astruc shouted from his box, 'Ecoutez
d'abord! Vous sifflerez après!'
Stravinsky dashed
sup
Itle
backstage and stood behind Nijinsky, who was on a chair
6 be gry
shouting numbers to the dancers Cirice as they could not hear C te
the music)
Nijinsky was as white as a sheet, Yet
heaudince afterwards, when the audience had gone home, no one of
plaguhinte the 'committee' seemed tofeet unhappy, A They were oly
foil
angry. Diaghilev murmured at dinner afterwards,
Corliau Said
'Exactly what I wanted'. L In the subsequent performances
there were few interruptions.
And in London, where
the Diaghilev company went under Sir Joseph Beecham's
management to the Drury Lane theatre, reaction toSacre
was mixed but polite. The Times said, London takes
both its pleasures and its pains more quietly than
Paris.'
Diaghilev took care to print a scenario of
the ballet, and got Edwin Evans to introduce it at
nden
the curtain,fuehe audience cut his lecture short, though,
and the ordeal was on.
Nijinsky looked relieved when
he took his curtain. Piltz and Monteux got a warm hand.
sxcejpl te >xhaurta Nij ushy
who ked das ced in Le Jacctie pr
fhe carthen R a S Sacie


There was no doubt, The Times said, that the Sacre music
had moved so far ahead of Petrouchka that it parted company
with 'anything coming even from Paris'.
That was the last
dieclty
time Nijinsky worked) Eor Diaghilev. Analot many months
enth
later Astruc was bankrupt.
Stravinsky was not satisfied.
He felt that his music,
being 'clear and defined' , demanded an equally clear choreo-
graphy.
Nijinsky, though he had grasped 'the dramatic
significance of the dance', had been incapable of giving
'intelligible form to its essence, and complicated it
either by clumsiness or lack of understanding.
For it
is undeniably clumsy to slow down the tempo of the music
in order to compose complicated steps which cannot be
danced in the tempo prescribed'.
Maestro Cecchetti, was SAS
Ter
TVE aas - ky
which ncant al
e founa the modern ballets, namet Athose after Swan Lake
and Giselle, rubbish, and complained about the music:
'Very soon I won't be able to go on the stage, to listen
to that sick-cat music of Stravinsky and those crazy French
composers'.
He-ventonwith Mis rigorous classes in
inuas
classical dancing, and according to Romola Nijinsky he
invariably started his class fith the principals by say-
ing, 'Tamara Platonova, Vaslav Fomitch, you may be cele-
brated, great artists, but here in my class you are my
pupils, nothing but my pupils!
Please forget here all
your crazy modern movements, all that Fokine, Nijinsky
nonsense!"' And Karsavina and Nijinsky, she added,
obeyed him and sweated far more than the corps de ballet
did.
Diaghilev usually came at the end of a class,
just to fetch Nijinsky, who was otherwise trailed and
guarded by his valet, unless Cecchetti was at work with
them.
Nijinsky was most irritable lately. He insist-
ed on having a room of his own, as otherwise he could
not sleep.
In Vienna he kept to his hotel room for
three days, barring even Diaghilev (perhaps, now, esp-
ecially Diaghilev).


There were rumours in the company of a coming
South American tour.
When the heady London season was
over the company dispersed for a fortnight's holiday.
Diaghilev went to Baden-Baden with Nijinsky and Walter
Nouvel, and spent most of the holiday discussing a new
ballet based on Bach's music, again to be choreographed
by Nijinsky, which in fact never came off.
Benois
joined the group from St Petersburg, and the Bach excerpts
were chosen.
Diaghilev and Nijinsky seemed to be getting
on well again, and there was much laughter. The
company was due to sail from Southampton on August 15
kaol
with Baron Gunsburg in charge, since Diaghilev/decided
wayla
pse
mot-toga, 1 givemnis horror of the seat- zae periodical
hatgo
Channel crossings were nightmares enough.
He would go
to Venice instead.
S S
aned out Nijinsky joined
fo Soutt
Romolo
the boat/at Cherbourg, and his future
her
Amence
bride,began
decoying operation: 'Now here is my chance. Twenty-
one days of ocean and sky---no Diaghilev.
He can't
escape. By the time we arrive I will have a flirtation
with le Petit. Ce que femme veut Dieu le veut!'
Diaghilev got the news in Venice, where Misia Gw
auel hady
sort |had joined him. He had just called her to his
Ripon
room to play over a score that had tust arrived.
was still in his nightshirt and slippers.
He was in
his gay Venetian mood and danced capers across the room
for her: He seized her parasol and opened it.
Misia
stopped, kim and toil Said. him to close it again quickly, as it
was such bad luck, and she knew how fearfully super-
from li
stitious he was.
Someone knocked on the door.
There
fatkful
was a telegram Diaghilev opened it and 'turned livid'.
Vanily
According to Stravinsky, he begged him and his wife not
to leave him, after he had called 'a council of war'.
Bakst came to the room, also Misia's husband.
There
was some uncertainty as to whether the wedding ceremony
had actually taken place.
Diaghilev was against anyone
marrying, but for dancers he regarded it as fatal,
since it 'weakened the knees'k More telegrams arrived,
confirming that the ceremony had actually taken place.
Sucl a fantastre nolion - Mme Saleolova, Sro
Paylova and Kanavina - lio advocalist
a m sitas
celilauy fr dancn, Hogl
kancef).


They were all astonished.
was such an un-
Nijinsky
had
assue
marrying kind!Z Baron Cansburg/clearly played a leading
Nipasly
role---and as for that rich young girl! Hehad been
trapped.
Diaghilev sent off a telegram forbidding the
Dioghiles
union.
He was mad with grief and rage. The/party
h - P
travelled to Naples, where he launched into a 'frantic
bacchanalia' (Misia Sert's expression).
No one could
console him. Of all this Nijinsky, on the other side
of the Atlantic, was trustingly unaware.
He felt that
Diaghilev would understand, as he had understood him so
Thia toste well in the past.
Romola was not so sure.
Nijinsky
Itaee weeks
wrote off a letter explaining the whole thing, and ass-
kreucd
uring tetnat he would remain a true friend and 'serve
Suspe)
the cause of the Russian Ballet'.
The truth was that
he was growing into a man, quite suddenly.
Romola
noticed with some astonishment how seriously Nijinsky Ke
took marriage: having, learned the words previously from
Re adlis Lnfe
Gunsburg (for as yet they A Had no common language) he
told her about his affair with Diaghilev, and in a way
that showed how well he understood his new situation.
Diaghilev would approve, he said, even if he was incap-
able of understanding this sort of love.
As for Dia-
ghilev, he was to have joined Benois at Lugano, and to
have brought Ravel with him. He failed to turn up,
and Benois wrote to Straginsky from St Petersburg asking
news, having only heardwague rumours.
When he
a. secnd
knew,
wrote another letter to Stravinsky saying that
tOLFEE:
he doubted if Diaghilev was really heartbroken, since
theif 'romance had been breaking up for some time.
'The
whole story is such a phatasmagoria that I sometimes
think I have read it in a dream and am an idiot to be-
lieve it.'
What would happen now? Would Nijinsky
continue with the company? Why not? Benois asked:
'Why can't Nijinsky be both ballet master and a Hungar-
ian millionaire?"
Diaghilev sent Nijinsky a telegram, or rather got
Grigoriev to do so, dismissing him from the company on
the grounds of a breach of contract (though Nijinsky Jad


(yren phone-call
koun). Frzine's stoy JCA
LuDinghlev comi khis
adle lin lmg speeck
lat
C whick he said Av Li afalawss iH Nijusky was Ves.
had no contract since 1909. But this was not for some
months, and the telegram was sent from St Petsrburg,
afher
1 ompany
Thus Diaghilev's decssion to do without him was not an
: unpondered one.
First he got Fokine to work with him
Montys tagme,
againo Jhe had met Hugo von Hofmannstal in Venice to
talk over a Strauss ballet, and had told him that Fokine
and not Nijinsky would be doing the choreography.
Gri-
goriev (with the company on its South American tour)
nrt en Kion thought that Diaghilev could not possibly do without
u ceut- Nijinsky, having virtually created a new
of ballet
type
with him alone, 2 Yet he also knew how ungredictable
Diaghilev could be.
Nijinsky and his Romy a (who was
pregnant) arrived in Paris expecting to meet Diaghilev.
He was not there. He had been in Paris in November
to see Astruc's presentation of Boris Godunov (after
which Astruc declared his company bankrupt,
the earlier ballet
Btorcuined
season).
In Decemberjte went to
Moscow, where Benois was working on Goldoni's La Loc-
andiera at the Stanislavsky theatre.
He took with'
him a copy of Stravinsky's opera Le Rossignol, for
which Benois agreed to do the setting, and they also
discussed a production of Ramsky-Karsakov's opera
Le Coq d'Or, mostly on.. Benois' insistence.
It was
-clear that' Diaghilev was returning to opera again,
perhaps as a safeguard against losses incurred with
ballet, perhaps also in an effort to cover the gap left
by the end of his collaboration with Nijinsky. L
Nijinsky went from Paris to Budapest, and was anx-
ious to get down to work on a new ballet, Joseph,
which he and Diaghilev had discussed months before,
also
and the Bach ballet.
Sccording to Grigoriev, who went
straight back to St Petersburg from the boat, Diaghilev
was preoccupied by the failure of Nijinsky's two ballets,
and had come - to the conclusion that he did not have a
HOTEDOT OTTE I himatter
When Draghilev
shower
ne telegran te had rereivedin Venicene
L CKI covered
tands a characteristic
Marnue Decel ules
Ne also at tha
demide
callaborafn, C
Le n Lave Les
ei hea
Jren
ttu sealed Nijung fale
fusta develsahen


great choreographer in him after all. From Budapest
Nijinsky cabled him to ask when rehearsals would begin.
Meanwhile Diaghilev had heard from Grigoriev and Gûnsburg
that Nijinsky had missed an evening's performance at Rio
without explanation (this Romola always denied). Diaghilev
showed Grigoriev the telegram and quickly covered it with his


(Isbes sgnedy
haud, a chemctannre)
Gojmiv)
gesture I
whenjvess displeased about
something.
And he dictated to him his reply: 'I
wish to inform you of the following. Monspieur Dia-
ghilev considers that by missing a performance at Rio
and refusing to dance in the ballet Carnaval you broke
your contract.
He will not therefore require your
further services.
Serge Grigoriev, Régisseur of the
(pecenber Diaghilev Companyy.
FE as cheapandcowardly aet
thing
Hemust frengenti V - have thought. of A cruelty
if was C
aver pars when
A A
hre was
little
hopi
madress
proved
crueland
perhaps that the homosexual realtionship was not necess-
hn aintz
arily so 'lofty' as Diaghilev had #
couldend T Ke that
But he plunged the dagger in,
up to the hilt, and his Russian Ballet did not gain
from it.
Nijinsky could not believe it, but cabled Astruc
Rensian
to inform theipress that he was no longer working with
Diaghilev. He also wrote to Stravinsky asking him to
find oty all he could,
daises av
that he could not
meaut
believe Diaghilev Aaeuld act so meanly towards him,
particularly as he owed him a vast amount of money
(Nijinsky taimed at he had not been paid, either as
a dancer or a choreographer, for two years). Stravinsky
thought this incredibly naif of him---to be 'so unaware
of the politics and sexual jealousies and motives within
the Ballet'.
Apparently most of the friends round Diaghilev agreed
that he could not go on working with Nijinsky: this at
least two months after
Marewd,
the marriage. According to Dia-
hew
Comialldo
ghilev's)secretary Drobetsky /who had gone on the South with a Cutle
American tour, Diaghilev showed no resentment of Nijinsky
Compay,
on thetr/return to Europe, only seemed depressed. His
de ya
M arin
conversation bore no trace of hatred towards he
'only a feeling of affection and love, quite incomprehens-
ible to me'.
And the cable to Nijinsky hagas Lonty been
sent after
long discussion. No one had really been happy
about 'the Nijinsky period', Grigoriev felt.
'It had
seemed to be leading us nowhere, whereas Fokine's return
gave us fresh hope of success' (in spite of the fact that


Fokine had demanded Girgoriev's dismissal as a condition
of his returh---which Diaghilev had refused). The com-
pany's recent failures were nowl W /identified with Nijinsky's neatly
name, and his dismissal must have begun to seem a healthy
necessity, for he-COMARFE For a time the company had
gone off the rails: now it was back to the old days,
and everyone was relieved.
There must also. have been
much discussion about Nijinsky's failure to dance
one
fotod
performance
Rio, in a ballet for which he hadymo
understudy.
Both Gunsburg and Grigoriev agreed that
he and Romola had been 'adamant' about his noj appear-
ing, and this may have been the deciding factor when


Diaghilev sent his cruel telegram. Above all, there was a
clause in Fokine's contract that Nijinsky was not to be
in the company while he was choreographic director.
But the good old days did not return. La Légende
de Joseph (ymusic by Strauss and settings by José Maria
Sert), Les Papilpons (not the ballet-divertissementof
that name choreographed by Katti Lanner and first performed
in London in 1901) and Midas, together with the danced
portions of Le Coq d'Or were Fokine's work, and none
of them remained long in the company's repertoryaTfter
the 1914 season.
Joseph was to be danced by Diaghilev's
new acquisiition, an exceedingly beautiful eighteen-year-
old youth with large brown eyes who had remarkable qualities
of mind as well.
In many ways Hiassin was Diaghilev's
most complete pupil, responding with immediate zest to
the grand tour' of Italy under his guidance.
Diaghilev had seen him dance the tarantella in the
last act of Swan Lake at the Bolshoi theatre in Moscow,
and had at once made him an offer.
Kostrovsky, of the
Moscow ballet school, advised Miassin not to join Diaghilev
as he would lose the chance of playing Romeo (for he acted
as well) at the Maly theatre.
Miassin visited Diaghilev
at the Metropole hotel in Moscow, meaning to refuse,
and found himself accepting.
The boy had to travel to St Petersburg to be approved by
Fokine.
On the plushy' train Diaghilev began to describe
Fokine's choreography---'a new culture emerging from,our
old academic traditions', 9 in a fusion of music, dance,
painting, poetry and drama.
Miassin wasexcited, though
he failed to understand much of it. He was impressed by
Diaghilev's 'quiet, persuasive voice' and the self-confidence
with which he explained his ideas, and he began to wonder whe-
ther he could ever attain his 'high aesthetic standards' him-
self.
On another train-journey, to Cologne, Diaghilev
explained his first leading part to him, Joseph.
was thrilled by the fervour and conviction with which


he spoke, and by his complete dedication to the realis-
ation of his artistic ideals'.
He noticed how Diaghil-
ev's dark eyes brightened when he talked about his new
plans---not as if he was talking to a stranger but to
someone who shared his hopes and fears.
Miassin was
now in the 'family'. Listening to him, the boy decided
that he was the most cultured and yet most modest person
he had ever met. 'In spite of his authoritative air
and commanding presence Diaghulev had an underlying humility
and integrity which, I felt, derived from his total comm-
itment to his art. I began to feel that all my past
experience was negligible, and that I was now embarking
on an entirely new career.'
By the end of that train
journey he felt more at ease with the great man. Apart
Diaphilev
from his monocle and his streak of white haif (seemed
'elegant but unremarkable', and the boy even noticed that
he had holes in the soles of his shoes.
The Josep! rehearsals began in Môntecarlo.
Von
Hoffmannsthal was there explaining the story in his quiet-
ly self-effacing way. He enviséade Joseph as 'a noble,
untamed young savage in search of God', whereupon Count
aid
Henry Kessler would a
y in his 'brooding German
manner', that while he agreed with von Hofmannsthal he
wanted to point out that they were not simply interpret-
ing a Biblical story but... and would drift into a speech
about the spirit and its 'eternal conflict with the
forces of evil, decadence and materialism'.
Diaghilev
Sat
tould a 1 tt there looking irritated.
'Yes, yes', he said,
would say 'You're both right about the underlying phil-
osophy but you must remember this is a ballet, and our
prime concern must be with its visual impact'.
As soon as rehearsals began Miassin felt the difference
between the Diaghilev company and that of the Bolshoi in
Moscow.
'Here everyone seemed to be aware that they
ate
werg part of a great new movement in the world of ballet.'
Maestro Cecchetti, whom he saw as 'a plump, animated
Italian', was now in his sixties, and presided over the
classes with a gold-topped cane which Nijinsky had given
last
him in Paris on hispo birthday. The Paris and London


seasons were to be more safely balanced between opera
and ballet this year.
Stravinsky's Le Rossignol was
to be choreographed by Boris Romanov, probably to spare
Fokine more friction with Stravinsky.
Rimsky-Korsakov's
opera Une Nuit de Mai was to be given, with Chalipine
singing in Boris Godunov and Ivan the Terrible and
(London only, opening June 8) Prince Igor in a complete
performance. The ballets were also to include
Schéhérazade, Daphnis (Fokine wanted a decent showing
siuce a
for this at last,
e - TT opposite Karsavina).Anatk.u.
seand
wos ks le
Parisan
Thamar again. Fokine's relations with Diaghilev were
Scandal-
still under great stress, and he 'bustled about nervous-
owr Sacr ly's in Prince Lieven's words. Les Papillons was con-
cuar
ceipved as a sequal to Carnaval and, like that ballet,
ne edt was to Schumann's masic.
Doboujinsky did the setting.
Midas was another Gyeek ballet to music by Rimsky. -
sned b
Korsakov's son-in-law, Maximilian Steinberg, in a story
dance S
by Bakst, which most people thought absurd on its Paris
première on June 2, and it did not remain on the repert-
ory.
The Paris and London seasons were immensely succ-
essful, and yet no particular ballet was, and many felt
that in losing Nijinsky the company had returned to an
old path without conviction or much possibility for the
future. Alfred Bruncan wrote, 'With his good taste
M. Michel Fokine brings back to the Russian Ballet all
his graceful attitudes and harmonious gestures which
M. Nijinsky, with his grotesque ideas, sought to abol-
But others missed the excitement and the risk.
'Little Miono, 9 as Paris called him, looked peetical'
but was not yet a dancer to compare in any way with
Nijinsky. He was also so nervous that he could barely
get through his part. Le Rossignol went down well,
so did Le Coq d'Or, but Benois' new method of produc-
ing (after Diaghilev had voiced mlsgiv t uf Zabout its being
merethan a kind of 'recital) did not seem all of a
leiheslit
piece, though fater London, L adoredit and Osbert Sit-
even none
well wrote, 'Besides giving us some of the most dramatic kanParis


and haunting music of the past century, Le Coq d'Or
constituted a great satire... Fortunately for its succ-
ess, the fashionable audience could revel in the beauty
and strangeness of it without concentrating too much on
its meaning or implications'. Fokine had wanted to
h. P
do Le Coq d'Or purely as a ballet for Anna Pavlova,
using only one suite.
Diaghilev suggested doing the
whole opera, and Benois wanted the chorus and singers
listaad
on the stage L detad of in the orchestra pit.
Natalia
Goncharova did the settings.
Fokine was somewhat horr-
ified when he heard that she was to have the job, as
she and her husband Michael Larionov, also an artist,
had the atist reputation of belonging to a set of
Moscow 'futurists /. who painted their faces and tossed
bowls of water in the faces of their audiences.
Diaghilev suggested they all travel to Moscow to meet
the couple, and this they did---Fokine, Benois, Dia-
ghilev and Fokine with his wife.
He found a most
charming couple. (whoveretodomuchimportant-workfor
Diaghi evT
Goncharova was quietly dedicated,
sincere and concentrated' when she talked about her
designs.
Her paintings
first shocked Fokine.
tn etrfirs
A portrait only had one eye, L But gradually he began
to acquire a taste for the paintings of this 'frail,
nervous woman'. As to Larionov, he was at this time
absorbed
hetredor
in a study of Japaneese art. The singers/were
to take no part in the action, but sat perfectly still
- in pyramids on either side of the stage, almost blend-
ing with the wings in their 'warm vermilion and brown'
costumes, while the colours of the stage-setting were
fiery yellows and feds and greens and blues.
The
libretto was by Belsky, on a story of Pushkin's.
The Prologue consisted of an old astrologer passing
in front of the curtain to sung words, 'This fairy
tale is a fable, but it contains a hint, a lesson, to
all good people', shaking his finger at the audience.
When the curtain rAises the astrologer presents the
Tsar Dodon with a golden cockerel which will proptect


him against war-like neighbours.
Twice the cockerel
Zshices
crows to warn the TsarL, and he leaves for the battle-
fieldg where his two sons are killed. A fantastic
tent rises up before him and the lovely queen of Shem-
akhan appears. The Tsar falls in love.
The astrologer
appears again and reminds the Kihar of a promise he made
in exchange for the golden cockerel, namely that he will
grant /uim anything he asks wiszgn
The atsrologer asks
astroloçer
for the lady.
The Tsar refuses and hits him.
The
aktbolger lies, and the golden cockerel pecks the Tsar mortally
in the temple.
The lady disappears with a laugh, a
and the Tsar dies, while the astrologer reappears, to
tell the audience that only he and the queen were living
people: all the rest was a nightmare, 'an apparition
pale and empty'.
This extraordinary piece---which div-
ided only the critics---was the last work Fokine did
for Diaghilev.
ke Contem
Several people tried to bring Diaghilev and Nijinsky
la Greffuble together again in Parisrh Diaghilev would not hear of it,
lads Cunard though in the end he did promise to give Nijinsky a part
in London, which he failed to do, thus making matters even
Ripon,
worse between them. Some people say that Lady Ripon,
anxious to see justice done to Nijinsky, gave Diaghilev
an ultimatum that if the dancer did not join the company
for the London season there would be no season.
But
the season had been planedd long before, and the Drury
N te
Lane theatre booked, and not even Lady Ripon]had the
Russian
power to stop it.
o she - tas
Sesms
bring Tnt ormer Triends cogether Nijinsky te to A.12.
Comiltee
Paris, but did not meet Diaghilev.
Hedid not visit
A They must have seen each other however as
when ha
Nijinsky was present at the première of the Russian
Ballet on May
Everyone, including the journalists,
egende de
14,k He
spotted him.
do had already received many offers
wus
from managements, including the Opéra, and had atready
given,
appeared at the Palace theatre in London (after a clown's
tnd
act) in Le Spectre de la Aasea new Nersion of Les
Sylphides and Danse Orientale, back in March. The whole


CNijuny Slesn c Ladon Rerd been
een a miserable tragedy.
Diaghilev had
brought a lawsuit against Bronia to stop her appearing
with her brother, on the grounds that he had not accepted
her resignation.
It failed, but Nijinsky's tendency to
hysteria and his utter inabilityc(as with so many perform-
ers) to organise antyhing or see matters from a manager's
point of view plunged him 26 one crisis tt another,
until he became too ill to perform and missing three
performances, lost his contract with Alfred Butt (whom
he had offended quite unnecessarily before trs season
polr
opened).
His thirty-two dancers had beed paid out of
his exn savings.
He Bad quarrelled with his sister.
Her husband had spat on the floor before him 'like a
moujik' (said Romola), and Nijinsky had smashed a table
in a row with the management.
He had refused to let allow
music beplaged during the pauses between one ballet
and another, or even to have the house-lights up. K To
recoup on his losses he had accepted an invitation to
dance in Madrid at Kermit Roosevelt's wedding reception,
at the American Embassy, with Spain's king and queen
present. For that he was paid three thousand dollars.
It was on his way back from Spain that he saw the Russian
in Paris
Ballet premièren During the intermission he went to
Misia Sert's box, where there were a number of Diaghilev's
circle, including Cocteau.
According to Romola (who was
in England expecting a baby), only Misia tried to make
conversation with him.
The others were facetious, and
Cocteau remarked that birth was 'disgusting', at which
Nijinsky left.
They may simply have been joking with
him about his new role as a father, but
seems
neontrned IIS back ont I rima
Both Bakst and Benois
met him, and talked to him in the old way. They found
him changed-- -'garrulous', andplanning the impossible.
NuaE then went to Vienna, where Romola joined him, Thes
and received a letter from Lady Ripon saying that Dia-
ghilev had consented to have him back in the company,
for the London season.
He did return, and he did be-
gin rehearsing with the company. Baron Gûnsburg and
the secretary Drobetsky received him, but no one else
1t, perfomances 150 Rad leen a
Cyne
disppoinlmet
o r o
Bea amr ne foun k A reavauge - 2 Les Lylph
fovmer magic. Alijinsley had losthis magic loo Le hp npe
likeaged


seemed aware of him, including the dancers.
Diaghilev
avoided him, though they were both staying at the Savoy,
and after the first rehearsal Nijinsky left again for
Vienna without seeing Lady Ripon, though he did write
her a letter of thanks for all she had done. His pre-
dicament was, in the most tragic way, a tribute to Dia-
For,
ghilev's powers)A he was"Diaghilev's product(in so many
ways
Diagbilev had isolated him So carefully from the
world that now, alone, he floundered, believing the web
of publicity that had been spun around him.
Diaghilev's
cruelty was to abandon him to a world he could not hope
to understand.
And he abandoned Nijinsky without the
smallest recognition of his instability of mind, though
the signs were clear (within days of the wedding Romola
had noticed them)
the
A a A Ruesian Ballet
das-prrhaps-ttx homosext
oth - the resultant devaste
achi
OT ne W TI IOt
OII
aus T
and malice
maver hat
naemi
War broke on August 4, when the company had dispersed.
Really it brought to an end] the Diaghilev Ballet and
made a fresh start necessary, just as it brought to an
end the fashionable audiences that had made its last
seasons in Paris and London the most
yet.
It looked as if the 'forthcoming struggle
had referred
ONadS
to in his 'summing-up' speech in 1905 had arrived, and
that his fear that 'the amenities of life' would be damag-
ed was to be fulfilled.
It was not long before he was
wondering where his next meal would be coming from.


War? Revolutions and a Season at the Met
The War meant that Diaghilev was for the first time
alone.
At first it did not look like this. He had
signed a contract with the Metropolitanntn tamitNew York for
a season there.
The ordeal of crossing the Atlantic
(the Met insisted on his going) seemed worse than a war
which, as everyone who knew about such things said,
would only last a few weeks, at most months.
Lady
Ripon had written desperate letters to Nijinsky and his
wife in Vienna pleading with them to return to England,
but they had taken this as a renewed effort on her part
to get him back into the Diaghilev Ballet, and they
moved on to Hungay.
She knew that a war would soon
be cutting Europe in two, and Nijinsky might find himself
on the wrong side. He did. He and Romola were arrest-
ed at the border as foreigners, on their way to Russia.
Karsavina was in St Petersburg and could not get out
again.
So was Grigoriev.
The company was due to re-
assemble on October 1, but there was little likelihood
of that now.
The Met was also insisting that Nijinsky and Karsavina
appear together in the New York season, and Diaghilev
was now obliged to make friendlier noises to Nijinsky.
He wrote him a long letter, and sent him a telegram.
He simply could not understand it when the reply came,
'Cannot come'.
At the end of November, 1914, he
wrote to Stravinsky, 'Nijinsky behaves So stupidly'.
He had sent the boy a reply-paid cable too!
And all


he could reply was, 'Letter received.
Cannot come'.
Jetar h
'I am sure,' Diaghilev added, 'that his wife is busy
Stravintes, making him into the first ballet master of the Budapest
Opera...I will now prite W
him a second, less modest and
less reasonable letter and this miserable person will
understand that now is not the moment for joking'.
It certainly was not, as the whole of Europe was about
to discover.
Diaghilev was quite used to making reconciliations
of this kind, and unashamed about them. -He expected
other people to look after themselves, and bore no
grudge if they tricked him successfully.
He would say
of someone who absconded with the company's funds, 'Oh,
he's only looking after himself'.
He quarrelled with
all his collaborators, and returned to them after a
time. It happened with Benois, Bakst, Cocteau,
Miussin 5
Larionov, Stravinsky, Rvael, Prokofiev, Fokine, Massine/ b be
And now
called)
he needed Nijinsky, having not many weeks before
virtually told the western world that he was fihished
with him.
In the sameletter to Stravinsky he wrote
that only Nijinsky could choreograph the new ballet
Noces.
News of the outbreak of war reached Diaghilev in
Venice.
Then he travelled south to Viareggio with his
secretary to meet Massine.
The resort was crowded and
stifling, and Diaghilev spent most of his time sending
desperate telegrams to St Petersburg and Moscow, and in
conference with Drobetsky.
He was trying to build a
new company.
Luckily Drobetsky had both a Polish and
a Russian passpport, and would be able to move freely
across the frontiers. Diaghilev put him on a train
for Poland with the injunction to return with a group
of young dancers.
At the end of Aggust he and Massine
went to Florence, where nitethtartook a villa so small
that the dining-room door had to be opened if there
were more than two gaests at table.
They went sight-
seeing together, and Diaghilev's quite moulding of one
more dancer and choreographer began.
In the Uffizi


one day he asked the boy, 'Do you think you could compose
a ballet?' To which Massine said, 'No, I'm sure I never
could'.
Then, in the room they moved on to, where le Muenue
suddenly became aware of the 'luminous colours of Simone
Martini's Annunipation', he corrected himself and said,
'Yes, I think I can. Not only one but a hundred, I
promise you!' In all he composed for Digghilev nearly
twenty ballets, in two periods.
stravinsky joined them in Florence, to help keep up
Diaghilev's spirits, despite his own rather desperate
situation with four children to feed and not much chance
of getting help from Russia.
He returned to Switzer-
land, but visited Diaghilev again, this time in Rome,
after another urgent appeal.
Diaghilev had taken a
furnished apartment for the winter, and they played over
some piano pieces Stravinsky had brought along with him.
One of these was a Polka dedicatéd, to Diaghilev.
told Diaghilev that while composing this he had thought
of 'a circus ring-master in evening dress and top-hat,
cracking his whip and urging on a rider'.
Diaghilev
looked at him in some astonishment, not knowing whether
he ought to be offended, but they had a good laugh about
in Rome,
it. Quite a circle had gathered round Diaghilev atready.
There was Prokofiev, from whom he had commissioned a new
ballet, and Gerald Tyrwhitt, later Lord Berners, who was
to write The Triumph of Neptune for him. From Rome,
joined now by Misia and José Sert, biaghiter at T B assine they
drove up to Switzerland, visiting San Gimignano, Siena,Monte
Oliveto Maggiore and Pisa.
They settled near Stravinsky
at the Villa Bellerive in Ouchy, mear Lausanne, and the
composer hoped to see them feequently---but one of his
children caught the measles and Diaghilev's horror of
infection kept him firmly away from the man he needed
most.
Grigoriev came from Russia, travelling through
and
Norway and Sweden te England, and then via France to
Switzerland.
Bakst arraved, also Larionov and Gontcharova.
Ernest Ansermet, being Swiss, was always on call: it


was agreed that he should conduct for the New York season.
One day, when Massine was talking about 'primitive' Italian
art (as Byzantine mosaics and even the Sienese school were
then called) Digghilev suggested that he should do a litur-
gical ballet based on the Passion. He-hadseenmherethe
yout
might lie Like Nijinsky, Massine had a
latent mystical quality, in his case much more overtly
expressed, and closer to art, while Nijinsky's went deep
into the formative receesses of the self where ecstasy
lay
and madness coulachie. Massine had been struck by the
Hote
Christs of the Italian painters, that poignantly tender
figureswhich seemed throngh -
gainters to have ach-
pam
ieved kindor divine choreographers. The-ideneven
formed infassinetsmind that - those a ters weregreat
noredg eas on
Something of the Passion was in all
Hag Pussh
art: Massine saw to what extent that H was itself oas
the pinnacle of antor artnre form, and how Christ had chosen
that story with the predilection of an artist, except
that it was to be played out in his body.
The ballet
was to be a series of tableaux in the style of the early
Italian masters, and Larionov was to work with him.
Diaghilev had taken a small rehearsal hall in Ouchy,
and rehearsals started with the other members of the
Hild n
company who had by now arrived---Kremnev and] 'Muningsova'
M A hl
(now to be called Lydia Sokolova), Woizikovsky and
Slavinsky, Tchernicheva, Adolf Bolm, the Nemchinova
sisters, the Chabelska sisters and the Soumarakova
sisters, and Xenia Makletsova from Moscow. Droubetsky
and Grigoriev had done their work well. Lydia Lopokova
h. P
would be joining the company in New York, a nd Diaghilev
engaged a striking French opera singer called Flore
Revalles to do the Ida Rubinstein parts.
This was
at Bakst's suggestion---he had probably fallen in love
with her in Geneva, where he saw her in Tosca. Karsavina
now
would not leave Russia, and Diaghilev was/doing all he
could now to get Nijinsky out of Hungary +
aS only
successfuliin time Ior the seCondNew-Tork season).
Fokine too refused to leave Russia, and so Massine was
chouprtae virtually forced into his new rolef But there was


Maestro Cecchetti, as always, to drill the newcomers into
an ordered company.
Massine and Sokolova went through some preliminary
e ttehew
steps together for
Larionov and Gontcharova
Liturgie,
lallel
khe called started work on the backdrop. fiet the whole idea was collapred.
dropped-beczuse Diaghilev wanted it performed to silence,
with ancient chants from Kiev in the pauses, and when
idea he found that these chants were unavealable he abandoned
4 Possibly that was the story he gave to Massine,
netagahs
feeling that he was not yet ready to compose a ballet
of such weight.and-nouelty
Massine's first ballet
for the company was actually Le Soleil de Nuit, an
engsemble piece based on Russian folk dances, in which
he himself danced the Midnight Sun.
Diaghilev tried
this and the new company out in two Red Cross charity
performances in Geneva on 20
the Paris
Decomber,before
elyo
opening nine days later.
e took freveptt trips
takiig
to Paris for money,) and in her book Dancing for Diaghilev
Mu K L
him
Sokolova describes how they always knew if he had been
nth
successful by whether Massine was wearing a new sapphire
ring erat Ars like Nijinsky. he was a 'king of the
sapphires', only he set them in platinum while Nijinsky
set them in gold). According to Sokolva these six
months in Switzerland were the company's happiest, and
Diaghilev seemed relaxed and optimistic.
The Paris
performance# (the Opéra, closed after the outbreak of
war, wasespecially opened for the Russian Ballet) proved
enormously successful, and over 400,000 gold francs went
through the box office. Massine's first ballet tent 3 cu
ceire d
dewn well, and Diaghilev said to his business manager,
'You see? Given the talent, one can make a choreo-
grapher in no time!'
But he deflated Massine---'I
Mdhim.
didn't hear them cheering', he said
ballet-was
more dueto harionors
ham the
young dancer
MT +
abilities.
Larionorhad
suggested Tusing the story OT the sun-god farilawith
that of HT SnOW Maiden
ing Frostts daughter. Massine
was TesponsibI
obyt the village half-
Unis wan a
Red Cryts perfosma Ca
snister
fect, how
Pars war
Stavintky
3at
'slomy
ttl He war wus A
L cnducted ke oun Ficlird.


FDipele Kadt cope with He
lded Tenw S lurking Gesman sulmarines
e ed
One Italian critic called the
productign 'stravgante e stupido'.
The company sailed from Bordeaux in a small vessel
intended for summer cruises on the first day of 1916,
and, as if to prevent Diaghilev from evèr undertaking
the trip again, it was a rough and stormy crossing.
He stayed in his cabin studying production schedules
with his new business manager Randolfo Barocci and his
secretary Drobetsky.
Some say that he wore two life-
belts throughout the trip, and refused to eat, and looked
thopoughly mournful and green until the moment they
docked. Vassily'sbob on board was to pray for him
as hard as he could, before the ikon in his cabin. A
'America will have a lot to say in the art of the
future', Diaghilev once said to Arnold Hasekll.
But
that was in 1926. In 1916 he found much in the United
kim,
States to perplex It was really the end of his aristo-
cratic' period.
After the American trip he did his
accounts better, or rather he did them for the first
time.
He cut down spending to what he could afford,
or what the box office could be calculated to yield,
rather than what he needed.
The casual days when
even funds could safely rely on a word from a friend,
E fran CS
and a countess or marchioness could move thousands,in
his direction, were clearly finished in Europe. In
the United States they had never existed.
That country, He weut to Ike
represented both a challenge and a reminder.
He would,
nised
have to adopt some of its realism in matters of money,
r Bat
and contractual commitments, or else go under.
frre 1916
bitterly resented the Christian names and other familiar-
ities of approach that a wealthy democracy goes in for.
3 muld ufluence Not that he held back from American taste where it
predicted He
funper -
was less refined than what he was used
T red
togkHe
sic,
tothe New Orlaans
theHoffman sisters.
jazz, and/liked
hip
There had been a great deal of advance publicity for
the company.
The opening at the small Century theatre
on Central Park West was a bitter disappointment for
him. The audience simply did not seem to understand
Carlart, thae a al he Cld the Preni)


what was going on.
He felt that for them it was 'light
entertainment', something that could be more or less
yawned through after a hard day at the office.
They
were not yet 'ready' for the Russian Ballet, that is the
new ballet as oppsoed to the kind of Anna Pavlova evening
that New York was used to. Despite some lovely perform-
Miassin
ances the audience seemed 'puzzled', and Massine felt that
Diaghilev took this to heart, though he made sure (his
eye on future New York seasons) that he was reported in
the newspapers as liking America and finding the audiences
most appreciative.
The first night consisted of Schéhérazade, with Bolm
dancing Nijinsky's role of the slave, Firebird with
Makletsova and Tchernicheva' , La Princesse Enchantée (the
pas de deux from Bluebird, with Bolm and Makletsova)
and Massine's Soleil de Nuit.
Bolm was ill for a few days,
and not at his best form for the opening.
And the.Ballet
was a disappointment for the audience too, in that the
'biggest name - o * ompaiy ---and life in the States
was much more publicity-orientated than life in Europe---
was missing.
Nijinsky was already known there, while
the company was seen more or less as a support for his
greatness.
Word had come from South America of this
'god of the dance', and it was impossible for Bolm,
much less the untried Miassin (now named Massine for the
convenience of Anglo-Saxon audiences), to counteract
the effects ofthis legend by sheer fine dancing.
Karsavina was missed too.
But it was not all a


matter of publicity and gullibility. One or two
people in the audience who had been present at the Opéra
and the Châtelet felt that without Nijinsky and Karsavina
the company lacked its former brilliance. Carl van
Vachten, the music critic, was one of these.
Massine,
he said, was neither agreat dancer nor a great mime.
Makletsova was accomplished technically but she was
without poetry. Lopokova had charm but 'flundered'
in her ballerina roles.
And Flore Revalles was no Ida
Rubinstein.
The other critics were, on the whole,
enthusiastic, and there was no doubt that Diaghilev had
given New York better than it,had been given before,
ip ballet.
But perhaps the audience was more 'ready'
than Diàghilev thought---for the kind of -ballet he had
given Paris and -London- and'distinctly did not give
New York.
Puritanism hit the company rather hard, though
Romola Nijinsky maintained that the director of the


Met, Gatti-Casazza, and the rest of his(Italian clique',
were against the Russian Ballet from thè startircce Police
were present in the audience after complaints/received
on the first nienef of Schéhérazade and L'apres-midi d'un
Faune (Massine was given Nijinsky' roles in Faune,
Petrouchka and Schéhérazade). Some people did not like
'blacks' mixing with 'whites' in the Schéhérazade harem--
there was talk of a kind of choreographic apartheid being
devised to accomodate the sensitive.
And by now Faune
had its own inbuilt and pre-shocked audience because of
Dinghulev
the publicity given to the Paris 'scandal'. 2 Both ballets
txbloite
tk fn
had to be modified before they could continue. The Bakst
nhials
sets.andthe. 7 Stravinsky music were singled out for praise
buypra - as in the press---but Diaghilev was unable to persuade the
kart es Ke Met to invite Stravinsky over to conduct his own work
cmld
(the composer was finding it difficult to survive in
Switzerland). The audiences did get wgrmer during the
Then
lah
fortnight.
the company, minus Makletsova, moved
Dinghile) on to Boston.
Meanwhile Diaghilev's efforts to get
Nijinsky and Romola out of Hungary had started working,
and the newspapers were hoping that he would arrive in
time for the second New York season on 3 April.
Queen
Alexandra had (through Lady Ripon and Comtesse Greffuhle)
become involved, together the Dowager Empress Marfie
urky
Feodorovna and the Emperor Franz-Josef.
The pope and
the king of Spain also intervened, and negotiations went
on in Vienna through the American ambassador there.
In Boston Diaghilev busied himself with the lighting,
and spent whole afternoons adjusting the foptlights and
the lanterns.
After Boston there was the horror of one-
night stands in about sixteen ather towns including
auf
Chicago, Detroit, Indianpolis, Kanasas
Pittsburg.
mornig a CitsA
There would be # rehearsals in théjafternoon, a performance
in the evening followed by a late supper, than on to a
Pullman train for the next date. The sleeping cars were
carmmed with dancers, electricians, musicians and carpenters.
In Washington the company performed before President Wilson
and his wife.
Back in New York Nijinsky had still not
arrived, though he had left France. His boat actually


0 te Leconol Cea H A
docked the day after the openingk Diaghilev with Massine
and other principal dancers went to meet him, and fought
their way through reporters and press photographers.
But there was little fraternisation.
Diaghilev and
were
Massine had Magig at the Ritz.
Nijinsky and Romola
went to Claridge's.
Nijinsky refused to dance until
the subject of his arrears of pay had been discussed, and
the management of the Met insisted that these would be
paid out of Diaghilev's receipts each evening during
Nijinsky's eleven performances. It involved Diaghilev
in a certain loss, however well the second season did.
In fact he enpded in debt to the Metropolitan. Gnionév Firu Nijinsly
age
Diaghilev and his 'committee' usually met at the
Plaza hotel for late supper, to the sound of a ragtime
band.
There would be Grigoriev, Massine and Lopokova,
diseclng and sometimes Otto Kahn, would join them.
Kahn was madly
tu Met, in love with Flore Revalles and sent her bouquets of
roses continually. Elsa Maxwell played her well-known
role by organising fots of parties.
Massine had come
to admire Nijinsky through the choreography of Faune.
Now he saw a quiet and reserved' man who was utterly
transformed on the stage.
Nijinsky had 'an instinctive,
effortless control of his body, every gesture expressed
most tender and complex emotions. Movements merged into
one another'. He endowed Petrouchka with 'an undefinable
quality of self-revelation', with his peculiar jumps and
turns and tifits of the head.
Technically his dancing
was incomparable.
Massine had, of course, never seen
him before.
Nijinsky's flutpering /
wrist-movements in
the Blue Bird were so fast as to seem impossible: they
were actually double the usual rate. With the other
members of the company Nijinsky was not too popular,
because of the hard demands he was making.
Not until
12 April did he make his debut, and some critics claimed
gaul a hR iff 3 : ) lits
that his presence on the stage nad
érenee to the
qratity a f the orgchestral sound, and the tempi, and
even the action.
Perhaps too the Nijinsky-Diaghilev
union was, for those eleven performances, alive again,


invisibly, unknown even to themselves.
Not everyone
in the company agreed that Nijinsky was at his best, Hough.
Grigoriev thought that he improved gradually during the
season, while Sokolova saw a definite deterioration from
his great days..
Otto Kahn fixed up another season for the company in
the autumn, with a coast-to-coast tour, and was unwise
enough, being quite inexperienced as an impresario, to
suggest that Diaghilev should leave the management of
the company to Nijinsky while he returned to Europe.
Clearly, a gun was being pointed at Diaghilev, and he
could hardly sacrifice a lucrative tour at a time when
most of Europe was closed to him. He agreed that the
company should be 'rented' to Nijinsky.
He also accept-
ed an invitiation from King Alfonso to appear in Madrid
most
and San Sebastian/ He seemed very tired, and was glad
Stalzs
to leave after the pressure of the one-night stands.
Nijinsky stayed behind, to await the return of the
company later in the year. They sailed on May 6 on an n.
Italian boat called Dante Alighieri. For Diaghilev it
was a far more terrifying journey than the earlier one,
since the ship was full of munitions, apart from stam-
peding horses.
The war was now under way, and the danger
from submarines was greater than before.
Half way
across the Atlantic the Dante Alighieri listed to one
side, and for several days they could not reach their
cabins and had to sleep on deck.
There was a hole in
the ship.
The horses kicked and screamed, and many
died.
Diaghilev sat wrapped un a dark grey beaver-
lined coat, clutching the arms of his chair and seeing
his end in every wave.
But they arrived safely in
Cadizrfor spring and the scent of lemon blossom. They
had to travel at once to Madrid for the opening night
at the Teatro Real, in a gala performance before the king
and his queen Ena, and an aristocratic audience in full
regalia.
Massine saw brocades, velvets, tiaras, and
the audience responded warmly to Carnaval and
Schéhérazade.
On his fee evenings Massine watched flamenco dancing
in the Madrid cafés, and wasastonished at the perfect


Diaghiley
timing and control. Heyspent
afternoons.
Draghilev. at the Prado, and
contemplated doing a
Spanish ballet.
Diaghilev suggested Fauré's Pavane as
music, with its 'haunting echoes of the Golden Age of
Spain'.
Massine wanted it based on Velsquez, visually,
and Diaghilev commissioned José Sert, 'the epitome of a
Spanish grandee', to do the costumes.
The ballet,
Las Meninas, was quickly done, and got its first perform-
ance in the company's next season at San Sebastian, in
the Teatro vigcoria-Eugenie, with Massine dancing the
courtier opposite Sokolova, while Tchernicheva danced
her companion and Woizikovsky the other courtier.
The king and queen were delighted.
Within days Massine
had another ballet ready, this time a Russian folk story
about an evil witch, Kikimora, with music by Liadov.
Tnat too got its premiére at San Sebastien.
In early
h 2
September most of the coupany returned to the United
States for its season under Nijinsky, while Diaghilev
and Massine took a rest in Rome, though not for long,
as Stravinsky joined them and there were sixteen dancers
to rehearse, with Luba Tchernicheva as ballerina.
Yet
more new ballets were planned---Les Femmes de Bonne
Humeur, to music by
Scarlatti which Diaghilev
Dronpico
discovered himself, Parade in the Cubist style, La
Boutique Fantasque, Massine's most powerful work So far
and ready only in 1919, and the company's first English
ballet, The Triumph of Neptune.
Diaghilev took an apartment on the Corso Umberto,
and intensive rehearsals started in a basement studio
in Piazza Venezia under Cecchetti.
Meanwhile the
rest of the company had begun its tour in the United
States, and stories drifted to Rome that it was not
ibav
hew
proving successful, and,Nijinsky's Oun ballet Tyl
Kadheer
Eulenspiegel was coldly receiged. Also Nijinsky was
Piere
quarrelling with the conductor,)M Monteux, who on his
side was refusing to conduct the 'German' music of
Strauss.
The dancers also went on strike, refusing
to dance to such music, 'as Russian citizens'. Nij-


insky slipped and nearly broke his foot, being ballet-
master, dancer and manager in one, which could not work.
On the company's arrival at Atlanta. he was summoned to
rlunal
appear within ten days Jat St PeresburgAfor military
serivice, though in fact he was exempt.
Romola was later
this wen
uwk
under the impression thatyDiaghilev, was machi
ai 1S
hims As Cecchetti once said to her, 'These Russians are
a strange lot. For thirty-five years I have taught and
studied them. They are my friends, I love them, but there
is something about them that we Europeans can never,
never
Pavlovitch should not mix
penetrate... Serge
love and art; it's a very great mistake.' Still, it is
doubtful whether he intrigued against Nijinsky anywhere,
But
let alone Russia. h Romola became
suspicious--
such was Diaghilev's magnetic hold on
imagination---
that every accident during the later South American tour,
like a nail on the stage-boards or the collapse of scenery,
seemed
Was) hisdevising.
'His amazing hypnotic power did not
seem to have lessened with the years, 1 she wrote of this
period.
'While listening to him at dinner once, when
we were watching the ladies dancing at the Palace hotel'Clater
in Madrid) 'I could understand how he subtly suggested
his ideas about women to his youthful followers.
For
as he criticised the lines of the women's bodies, I
myself too could only see the ugliness of them'.


Diaghilev would sit with his committee in the Ariana
café on the Corso, and sometimes Mikhail Semenov would
join them---he was a former music critic from St Petersburg.
Massine practiced on the 'creaky stage' of the old teatro
eack
Metastasio every day under Cecchetti.
The afternoons
drifted away pleasantly in talk as the weather became
hotter and the hours after lunch made work impossible.
It was Diaghilev who suggsted the Goldoni play (Les Femmes
de Bonne Humeur) and gave Vincenzo Tommasini the job of
orchestrating the Sadrlattij sonatas, about twenty of them,
they chosenfrom at least five hundred.
The set
by Bakst, in the atmosphere of Francesco Guardi's Venice,
was onebr the finest he eyer did, while Massine studied
the tiny 'social' pictures of Pietro Longhi for the supper-
party given by the maid Mariuccia to her admirers, in the
TLy
M ariucciu
absence of her mistress Marchesa
PaalA
Silvestra.
7 Awas
Lydia Lopokova's part, while Cecchetti and his wife
played fne old marquis and his wife.
Massine also
turned the one-act Kikimora into the full-length Contes
in tin
Russes at this time. He was already showing
a LCL
signs/of
choresgalaly
that -
flowing vigour which later astonished
audiences, where every moment in the action, every
feeling was danced and never'mimed.
In the Massine
ballet dancing never ceased: even the miming was .ex-
pressed in a dance-form; and his. ballets were an exhil-
arating manifestation of the music and the drama in
fal 2 Ae
movement alone, that ceased only with the, curtaino


h - e
sxpnemion
Halike Nijinsky he moulded the moment to the music A
He R -
seenal
and
med
learned
anee
have
much more from Italy, in
creata
k have
his acceptance of dancing as celebration more than
ch nta.
the truth of individual feeling, and above all/his
acceptance (for he was an excellent actor) of the yoke
of the story, in a deft fidelity to period.
There was trouble over the knight's horse -in
the Contes Rysses. Diaghileh entrusted this to the
futurist artist Fortunano Depero, but when he and Massine
went to his studio on the outskirts of Rome they found
a huge 'bulbous' beast looking like an elephant.
Diaghilev smashed this papier-maché creature with his
stick, wtit Massine + ing l to tell the artist that 'this
was not quite the thing we had in mind'.
'But it was
how I SAW it!' Depero told them, with paper guts all
over the studio-floor,mmm In the end Larionov did,
and
ChomDiagh
a 'gracentul' creature out of woog/paintedjwhite.
hne inn L Mon
parnane 11 E
Picasso) was also in Rome at this time, and saw
0lga Kokhlova dance the part of Felicità in Les Femmes-
he later married her. There were Jean Cocteau and Eric
Satie too. They were collaborating i Parade. The
book was by Cocteau Gis endless fantastic talk amused
and, in the heat, irritated Diaghilev aatkans was
much absorbed by music-hall and circus ideas at this
enshuclion
French
Inacke A cardlobrd
time, and the
with its/manager
ress
with
aol spedliky story man
paival
mhoazikovaky introducing the Chinese conjurer A
(Massine), and the New York manager (a skyscraper
painted on his back---Statkewicz) opening the curtains
of a booth to a performance of a 'little American girl'
on an invisible horse (Chabelska), with the music burst-
ing into ragtime, was a satire on the street parades
that used to precede a circus or music hall.
The
composer gave each character his signature-music'--
in the case of the American girl the clicking of a
typewriter, for the acrobats the sound of an aeroplane
engine. Coctean wantid many mor L 0 a Hh.l
( Laue
were - noV allowed. himy Hough; Hhag um
nsne
la demarcate Hhe l. ara cer
kelped
he ( (lel w an
an'ttily Hhan ty nctulh
and
like a Alm,
slight
slick, (uich


Though Parade was not revived during Diaghilev's
lifetime except as a solo dance by Woizikovsky (as the
Chinese conjuror),t was an astonishing glance forward
into the post-war world, and captured the feeling of the
new art with its combination of jazz, ragtime, cinema,
circus and music hall styles, and the 'noises that the
lovable maniac', as Satie called Cocteau, wanted insert-
ed, exergmherer Cocteau even wanted the managers to
uutil
speak through megaphones, and Diaghilev pointed out that
the spoken word was entirely out of place in ballet.
Picasso
supert
evaturt
painted a cubist' Acurtain---and presented the
audience with the newest thing about the ballet. (When
a aw rcal ro
Ihis
Djaghilev chou A
m gat revive the 'ballet in 1923
he asked Picasso to retouch this curtain but the painter
said, 'No, it's like one of those deteriorated Pompeii
frescoes, and is much better left alone'.) For the Paris
9 Parade performanceJin May 1917 Diaghilev published a pre-
amble by Guillaume Apollinaire about this 'Pioneer
cubist menifesto' which said, 'Parade will upset the
ideas of amny people in the audience. They are sure
to be surprised, but surprised in the most agreeable
way, and, being charmed, they will come to know all
the grace of modern movement, of which they have never
dreamed.
A magnificent music-hall Chinese will release
their imagination; the Young American Girl, as she
cranks an imaginary car, will express the magic of their
daily life, whose wordless rituals the Acrobat in blue
and white tights celebrates with exquisite, amazing
Mtan
agility'.
eet peopt t mougat
ramer-giTIy
Yet
had
Ign D ficance, as 1f it nad
eeme -
thanmake anyhnim
rews
Ereesponsible enterprise
that gives a few essential Wrtters and articts and musie
an rew
ITIC
ect
And Diaghilev was straining towards an even
ente
However much irritation he had felt in the
States, he had absorbed a great deal, and was perhaps
ociets


less squeamish than hitherto about the disappearance
M smes.
of the old society
'We are doomed to die', he had
said in that 1905 speech, 'to pave the way for the re-
surrection of a new culture, which will take from us
what remains of our weary wisdom'. He was more and
more determined in the coming years to associate himself
with the young people in whom he identified that new
cultire, andsometetimes juste at I B se
1 . P Yet the new culture failed to happen.
And what had
looked like a natural process of self-renewal in society
was, as matters turned out, only a stage of a mounting
self-destruction.
By the endbf the war that was a
fins
Pegan 1s
little clearer. By the end of his life he felt ve had
me b 5 me Le
- fosk,
trol ttpree cau tune Cefre TLa
taker
Step
+ * ong direcm TOn
arching
tallet
) Som a en
Les Femmes was given on 12 April at the Teatro
Costanza to an enchanted Roman audience, together with
undu Cad
Stravinsky's Fireworks as ayconcert piece against a
cubist background of concial and rectangular structures
designed by the futurist fiacomo Balla, with the lights
blinking on and off in time to the music (lighting by
On Markis
Diaghilev).
This toe was popular with the avant garde. Hee Tsar alrdic.
1917 was the year of new things in Russia too. atedt d Kerenky
The revolution that had really been going on since the Temer awenuet
first years of the century now toppled the old régime./In the sevdatn,
se eond,Bolshovit phase
1 and Kshesinskaya's house in St
was later, looted
Petersburg
AAciciste
and theu
econd prase
mvntutio/used by Lenin
S headquarters. 1 He harangued the people from her
balcony.
She was lucky enough to be in the Crimea on
holiday at the time.terhousem--togeth
witk thatof lala
cheMiniste:
+ h € Court--wasoonted
ind Sne had
a villa at Cap d'Ailland Shelater became ta
the Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovitch)s
Rasl
SS Krassinskayar She/lost nearly everything
possested,
she had, and settled in the Rivera, showing not a trace
of worry in her face. Perhaps Diaghilev felt a mite of 2.)2.
satisfaction when the news came from Russia of the new
Bolsherik government.
At any rate, he decided to mount
a red flag on the stage for Firebird, at the Teatro


Costanza, and to change Ivan Tsarevitch's crown,
sceptre and ermine for a red robe and a carmagnole cap,
which produced a sour reaction in the audience. On
the second night the flag was removed, but the red robe
remained, indeed became part of the tradition of that
ballet. Grigorier has
ferent story here. He did te . Salue
in Pank.
romembena the red flag figurtns at the Châtelet perform-
ance in May: the audience froze, and Diaghi Aer received
many letters of protest.
H.S action was not quite tactful
at a time when Paris was in an alarmist state, expect-
Geman
ing ap/invasion.
From Paris the company returned to Spain and settled
in Madrid, where Nijinsky joined them after the Number
One (or didDiaghilev consider it Number Two now?)
Xh colit company 's tour through Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee
Nit jenishy
and finally Chicago and Albany.. In February elhad
received a cable from Diaghilev asking him to come to
Spain as he wanted him to dançe there before taking EM Ris
hew
company on aL South American tour he was planning.
Romola had advised Nijinsky not to promise anything.
She learned later that as far as Diaghilev was concerned
his 'own' company was the really modern one, while the
one he meant to send on tour with Nijinsky was the
money-making one. Nijinsky, on his side, hoped for a
reconciliation with Diaghilev, and began working hard
his system of notation (he had devised a wayof neweyetem
gthis s Stebanov's)
ott
steps in preparation for the new work he
expected to be doing for Diaghilev.
He was also
thinking of returning to his own country. Like Dia-
ghilev, he seemed to assume that the air had been
cleared there by the Revolution: 'I am sure the
revolution isn'E going to change artistic life in
Russia', he told Romola.
'We love art and will always
work for its sake.
And of course they must ask Sergei
Pavplovitch to be director of the Marynsky now'.
whenthey Farrived inMadridDiaghitevvasinParts.
But this time Diaghilev tgeated him like a
friend. He burst into the lobby of the Ritz/and
Madnidl
him
embtaced
sky woth great warmth, afpto Romola it


heves quan vel lled
was like the reunion of friends who had breen awa L
rom
Diaghilev was his old
self.: They sat in a corner of the lounge and started
the
about recent events in RUssia. They
Ragyat
most 9
talked for hours. K Andduring the next few days they
were together. nearly the hote time
As for the South
American tour Diaghilev seemed to brush that asideto the nomeut
He told Nijinsky, 'We open in Madrid at the Teatro
Real, and then we will give some performances in
Barcelona.
Massine has composed some new ballets.
I want you to look at them and give me your openion.
Have you composed anything new? I want you to do so'.
One day he introduced Picasso to them---he was little
known/at this time.
Nijinsky was once more a member of
Diaghilev's intimate circle---the élite.
He said to
Romola,/You see? Sergei Pavolovitch is the same as ever.
He'll be fair to me---let's give him a chance to prove
Hecordig
Nijinsky did not like Parade. / He told Diaghilev
ARomola
that it was 'an essay', not fit to be shown to the
public in its unformed condition.
'It comes out of a
desire to be modern', he said, 'but it is not felt,
it is an artificially constructed choreography'.
Artyr a perforamnce of Massine's Les Femmes de Bonne
Humeur Nijinsky went to his dressing room and embraced
Maysine
him. He told him, he thought Les Femmes a wondeful
ballet, and looked forqard to dancing Battista one day.
Timself
They had a long talk, and Massine found him
delightfully sympathetic. Romola was becoming increas- mp.
nervous
prapostion afcly
ingly
at this time)as Nijinsky was becoming
more religious-
II e a E nin
wonder
should He ale
uclanlty
eat meat) et have sexual intercourse independently of
wanting a child This she saw as the 'sinister' influ-
ence of two dancers in the company.
And. Soon she was
was
the ulipitous
seeing, behind this influence, that Diaghilev. hime
One day, in the semi-darkness of the theatre,
Piagliles ci envenadod Slt She te ognised the uyolica 'dance.
she satty one of the dancers. tal E
Thez Talkedf
VTike an accomplices. 'I sensed now that Sergie Pavlov-
itch would rather annihilate Vaslav completely if he


could not own him both as an artist and as a man'.
Nijaay,
How Diaghilev could have annihilated HIm by turning
him into a mystic and a vegetarian---how a man of Nijin-
sky's remarkable purity could have listened for hours on
suly
Honngaly
end to the persuasions of malevolent friends she ldnot
umyslical udividuglcasld hauel
Romola
explain ed A what did Decome T W
was
exen
terrified of Diaghilev. Shey encouraged 'the
Duchess of X' to fall in lovewith her husband feeling So as k Lave
hat
- needed the support of another woman against
a homosexual on the one hand and a couple of mystics on
the other.
And She provided her husband with as many
diversions as possible--driving out to the Escorial,
Jeljing i
and zccepting invitationg. Diaghilev's secretary,
evere dinher
per
was
Drobetsky, hinted/that her fearg of Diaghilev WOTE well
grounded, and seme trouble would be coming LE soon.
The company moved to Barcelona, and Nijinsky took rooms
in the same hotel as Diaghilev and Massine.
He made
love to the Dchess of X.
day at lunch Diaghilev
oxe
brought up the subject of the South American tour.
'I'm not sure I want to go,' Nijinsky said, 'South (we tis Lis
America won't be a creative trip artistically'
N Romola's Cou-
Diaghilev gave him a cold smile: 'But you have to go, clusion?)
you are under contract'. To whom?'Nijinsky asked:
'I have no contract'.
Diaghilev then explained that
Nijinsky had cabled his acceptance of the South American
plan 'in principle' from Cleveland, and that in Spain
a telegram was equiavlent to acontract. s - pai
And
Diaghilev laughed---I shall force you to go!' Nijinsky
t acke ed
decided he would rather leave the company at once, and
tim
l frags
told Diaghitev so.h Jst As he and Romola were getting
on the Madrid express two plainclothes policemen app-
rpached them: 'M. and Mme Nijinsky, will you please Aspelicamen
follow us? You are under arrest.' h Andthey gave as
their authority the goyernor of Catalonia, in the pame h
arra Aa al with
of the king.
Diaghilev had codtacted the authorities la
kaue
andhad them stopped on the grounds of a breach of
contract.
Romola contacted the duke of Durcal in


try plone
Madrid, and within an hour they were released.
And Nijinsky agreed to dance, after urgent pleas from
the director of the Liceo theatre, who stood to lose
his whole investment, having made a guarantee-arrangement
with Diaghilev to the latter's advantage.
Nijinsky's
Her
last performance was on June 30. A contract was/ drawn
up by Romola's lawyer for South America, ad She insist-
ed that during the tour Nijinsky be paid in gold dollars
one hour before curtain-up at each performance. The
penalty on his side for breaking the contract was ls (e
20,000 dollars.
Diaghilev---not quite the devil Romola
made him out to be, as he had the desperate job of
keeping the company solvent in wartime (nor were the gold
dollars to Nijinsky's detriment)---signed it in his
drawing room. It was the last time they spoke together
as friends---until the period of Nijinsky's,/madness.
On July 4 Nijinsky's part of the company, with Grigoriev,
sailed, and Diaghilev and Massine, with their sixteen
dancers, went on working on the idea of a Spanish
ballet.
The two friends spent delightful evenings in the
Albaicin, the gypsy qyarter of Granada, which they
weut
visited.
They wout 8 to the Novedades café and
drink manzanilla, together with a famous torero
called Belmonte (for Massine was fascinated by the
bull-fight-- --no, doubt for its choreographic side and
not its bestial/and
They would
ancoig
watch Felix Fernandez Garciaf nervous and highly
Fle
cl lanco war
strung, dance
that was For Massine/ quite revolt-
Diaghulev ona e veuiip
ionary. WaF
Felix went C -
told
that
ol 3
Diaghilev-and
de au rin
he was unhappy
LS present A HO - and A contract was
gos
drawn up. The boy was twenty-one at this time. He
L To
joined the company and in Barcelona/taught aud
Massine
the intricate foot and leg movements of flamenco--
which was why in later years many thoRAndS01 people Hought
Caller
wereconvincedthaat Massine was Spanish in origin,
se 1 eenvi T
he dance
Felix quickly taught
him Spanish, loo, Indeed he was quick about everything-


he could sing the difficult sequidilla and allegria
songs while going through the eyollay difficult foot
movements or zapateado.
the to
accodring toMassine,
Tre wwtz
Zput a terrific strain on Felix's nervous system and it
was little wonder that he later went. mad, tnigndon-end
spent #
aome
Diaghil-
ev arranged a trip through Spain to cover Satagossa,
Toledo, Salamanca, Burgos, Seville, Cordoba and Granada,
VL anuel 0
with Massine, Felix and the polite and unassertive yet
tensely compelling composer/de Falla.
Ih Granada they
hired donkeys to reach the Alhambra and the gardens of
the Generalife, bet Diaghilev's collpased early under
his weight and he had to prod it into action again with
his stick.
Spanin!
Thelballet was called Le Tricorne. Picasso did
the settings but it was not Tpoduced until after the
war---at the Alhambra theatre in London, on July 22
Massine did everything to capture the native
dances of Andalusia.
He used a cine-camera, he,
organised parties and paid local dancers to
pefform.
very
forthempand went to obscure cafés/where/he heard
there was dancing.
The melody of the Sévillana
in the second part of the bgllet was actually derived
from a 'mournful little tuney de Falla and-Massine
heard while wandering round the Alhambra one after-
was
noon.
was A blind old man/playing the guitar,
Rin
and le Falla askedy to play the tune over and over again
until he had mastered it.
Rad anothr
Atthe sametime Diaghilev played for Massine
hew tallef
in hn
some little-known pieces by Rossini which Respighi
cnd
had shown him in Rome. TRay Tossini were onaa alls Composed them for
private performance h to guests, but their gaiety so struck
Massine that he had the brilliant idea of making 'a
Ressinis
ballet in a toyshop'---it was to prove one of the
Diaghilev Ballet's most superb works. Somemontns
tater WIT L
Derainwere walking through Leicester
Square
Dondon Derain STgg gested the idea of a Tight
batweenthe dolis and ne
ourchases


Gadualiy - Jan all biècedtaçolla inls a sicl ce trestlung densn
WEE
itquaint old shopkeeper in white drill and Panama
hat, and his assistant with a spotted handkserchief hang-
ing out of his pocket, and the thief who tries to rob the
dolls of their gold, and the two old ldies with their
parasols come to pnspect the dolls, and the American
family, with W children, and the dolls representing
court cards, and the Russian merchant with his four
daughters in furs, and the dancing poodles, and the Can-
Can dance,
ethe
md DUSL ng des:
Cyril Beaumont was present
at the first night of the/Boutique Fantasque-
a given
deveutcen
at the Alhambra in London, June 5 1919---and witnessed
dey, befire
one of the wildest triumphs of the Russian Ballet.
he cohne
TRe theatre was packed to standing.
Cecchetti's
shopkeeper was 'benevolent and whimsical', Ghtte
Gavrilov's assistant was 'quaint', end Mme Cecchetti
as the Russian mechant's wife 'was particularly good
when, in well simulated horror, she prudishly shrank
from the unwelcome attentions of the Snob'.
Of the
dolls, Beaumont's favourites were Sokolova and Woizi-
kovsky as the tarantella dancers (they were Italian
'peasant' dolls): they 'danced with a gusto---not to
be seen nowadays---which made you long to join them'.
Vera Clark and Kremnev were the poodles, 'the feminine
character of the one was well contrasted with the gruff an Marrin
masculine agtributes of the other', L Vera Clark
Rad Le Le
n eige Rii
danced her brown poodle number in 3/4 time, with the
most intricate steps 3 shewas so light, so playful, igmin try
So delightfully wanton'.
The Can-Can dance was not
iu Paris
cleves
that of the Bal Mabille) but a/choreographed version
wera eittle shocked
with only a touch of par rsenress (Beaumong t M
Fet
Coarseness when Massine slipped to the ground and his partner
whirled her leg over his head). Lopokova looked
lovely in her pale blue blodice and white skirt trimmed
with black lace and blue bows.
Massine was dressed
in black velvet, with curly black hair and dead-white
make-up.
Tne audience screamed 'Lopokova! Massine!'
'With the fall of the curtain the applause was


literally defeaning. !
Derain's set was a complete
departure from those vivid 'barbaric' colours of the
early Diaghilev sets: the doll's house had terracotta
walls, and its big windows overlooked Nice harbour,
backed by a kind of Douanier Rousseau landscape, all
in soft colours.
Bakstiprepared designe for this
ballet which Diaghilev disliked.
He sent Massine from
London, later in 1918, to meet Derain at his Paris
studio and discuss with him what they wanted---'an
unrealistic toyshop'.
The young Massine felt that
this was ruthless, but it did not surprise him. 'In
the theatre there are no friends', Diaghilev was never
tired of saying. Bakst'atpre-warjstyle had lost its
appeal.
The tone now was less 'lavish splendour'
than 'simplicity and rigid artistic control'.
Bakst
was almost mad with indignation.
Derain was so terrfifed of the first-night audience's
cheers that he had to be dragged on to the stage. Through-


out the ballet applause had burst in continually. fover-
whelmed by so much humour and radiant joy, a E dance after
dance toppl Es over each other with unexpected freshness
and variety.
Massine took call after call, Lopokova
was 'half-laughing, half-crying'.
It was the first
of many dozens of performances this century.
But that happened after the company's darkest
wher
problems had been solved.
Aft eP Nijinsky returned from
Hza
South America Diaghilev took HES whole company to
Portugal, where a revolution promptly broke out and
Massine
marooned them in Lisbon.
Diaghilev, Grigoriev)and a
Portuguese friend were walking back to their hotel after
a performance MCH ascine when they heard firing and
shouting.
Thon Some bombs exploded.
They dashed
into the hotel foyer and were told by the management
to take refuge under the main staircase.
They remained
there for three days and three nights. after-whi
Portuguese - revolutionenderd. The snow-white, pleated
evening shirt of the Portuguese friend became steadily
fre
greyer durmng Lhosedays, as smoke from thm-Eininghachna-gon
an Cromls feelared
seeped in from the streets.
As for Diaghilev, he was
irritated rather than frightened.
He had problems
enough without unexpected revolutions.
The rest of
the company was scattered about the hotel.
Felix locked
his
himself in A room and almost starved to death.
tnd
Massine, delightfully and typically, occupied himself
working out further sequences for La Boutique Fantasque.
After that---with General Sidonio Paes running the
hi p.
country---Lisbon was in no mood for ballet, and the
season was a flop.
And the general was assassinated
a year later.
Nijinsky was no longer with the company.


ovp parkafs
for kim
He, and Romola/ kad decided that he could no longer
fileal
work for Diaghileva againatthom Ithey nowhad a lawsuit ogassuhi
for failing to pay the company's return fare from South
Then tay
America.
The couple took a train straight
through Spain
and crossed the French frontier without contacting Dua- Te SmuH
Bhilert GThe accidents natural to any tour, such as American Tous
rusty nails on the stage and falling sepnery, had been sTil rankled
attributed by Romola (but not, almost certainly, by
Nijinsky) to Diaghilev's agents working to his orders.
There was clearly nothing to be done on Diaghilev's
side if a dancer's wife had developed a well-nigb obsess-
ively suspicious attitude towards him.
Diaghiler
simply-could-nothavehatamative for trying to mid
himself-of the company most - money-making
The company returned to Barcelona, where they faced
the hardest days yet.
Diaghilev made frequent trips
to Madrid, as he had so-often taken trips to Paris before
the war---to find money.
Picasso and de Falla had joined
the company again to work on Le Tricorne, while Massine
rhearsed Tchernichava, Nemchinova, Statkiewicz and Novak
in Boutique, and Picasso made sketches of them in repose.
Mata Han
The famous spy/was staying at the Ritz hotel in Madrid
when they were there.
She approached Diaghilev and told
him that she admired Stravinskt's music ardently, and
could she become a member of the Russian Ballet? Dia-
ghilev refused to consider it, and she wrote him plead-
ing letters.
bater
Barcelona,
hewas questioned by pouce about ner
It was an un-
settled life, and his clothes were getting shabbier.
He at last managed to get hold of a tour, with dates
at Valladolid and even smaller towns, for March 1918.
It was bigterly cold, but the audiences were appreciative,
though their money failed to pay for the productions.
company
The hotels were usually without heating, and ther/some-
times slept in their overcoats and hats.
They returned
to Madrid to perform before the king again, then did
a considerably warmer tour of the south---Valencia,
Murcia, Alicante.


lalegrapne
In Madrid again Diaghilev began/ negotiations with
Sir Oswald Stoll inLondon for another season there. in kindon,
These Madrid days were ones of near-starvation.
Sokolova had a baby- it va
et fren be
ST Diaghil-
f a
ev who did everything to set her food.
He EEd
disco ovesed
heap of foreign coins in one of his trunks, took them
to the brueau de change and with the pesetas bought
medicine and food for the child. Hetisited Sokolpva
at least once a day. He himself was getting weak and
thin.
All hopes of a Barcelona season had fallen
through. For a whole month he was in a tense and
to hmdn
desperate state, sending telegrams) every day.
make matters worse an impostor with a ballet group
was touring Spain under his name.
Robert and Sonia
Delaunay, who had designed the costumes for the New
York production of Cleopatra, did their best to keep him
cheeful
in the evenings, but it was uphill
work.
The rest of the company, under Grigoriev, was
in Barcelona waiting anxiously.
At last Stoll's
cable arrived, promising a season at the Coliseum,
with an advance, Diaghilev almost broke down with
the relief, and telegraphed the news to Barcelona at
once. That was not the end of his troubles.
News
came that the French were refusing visas through
France. He began rushing round the embassies--
the French, the Russian, the British---and in the end
managed to get visas through the intervention of king
Alfonso.
In August 1918 he and Massine travelled to England
ahead of the company.
At the French border two Spanish
detectives in dark glasses boarded the train, looking
rather sinister, and entered their compartment.
They
gaying
stood oing at Diaghilev, and then began questioning
him. Had he ever been associated with Mata Hari? The
monocle dropped from his eye with amazement. Had she
ever been a member of his company? Had she ever been
given an audition?
Had he received letters from her?
Having left the letters in Madrid, he felt he could sayk
and they seemed satisfied. They warned him to beware
Hougl ite broduction aar t. be reuerged lsetweer huusic- Rall ack
lihe hockhost
witt uls na tallatan 4 ay, a. revivad
ak tv And W 3 a F
doluk. u .
ELMLOLE


of the lady in future, and leff the train. again
Massine found Paris grey and lifeless. when
arrived- The cafés were closed, the shops shuttered.
A Big Bertha was sending over shells every now and then,
and the crash-ofthe explosions echoed and rumbled
through the narrow streets.
At the Hotel Meurice in
the Ruge de Riviali José and Maria Sert were waiting
when,
again
for them.
all left the hotel/later and the bombs
Fhey
were stilf exploding.
There was a direct hit on a
house near by in the Rue des Capucines just as they turned
into it.
Its glass rained down on the taxi roof.
They went straight to. the train andafter another day's
travel reached London, where the atmosphere was quite
different.
On Victoria station there was bustling
activity everywhere, and people seemed excited to the
point of frenzy. It was the same at Oxford Circus and
Trafalgar Square.
Everyone seemed to sense the approach-
ing end of the war. It was the same story at the Savoy
hotel and at the Coliseum theatre---an almost hysterical
expectation. There were only four weeks to prepare
cliseu
and rehearse the production,,and above all to bring the
company up. to peacetime levels.
In recent years it
had dwindled to forty dancers, while in 1909 it had been
fiftylive, in 1911 as many as eighty-three. Diagh ilev
recruited Englishigirls and kussianised their names-
Murray to Muravieva, Grant to Grantzeva, and Thomas to
Istomina.
Cecchetti h'ad'once more to drill a new
troupe into being.
Diaghilev complained about lighting
facilities at the Coliseum. He naturally hated to
see his dancers waiting for music-hall artists to clear
the stage for them, but it was better than starving.
And the clown performing was the great Grock.
They
enjoyed watching this saddest of all funny men from the
wings.
Amd the production opened at the height of an
influenza epidemic.
The six-foot policeman who stood
on duty at the front of the house died of it.
Cecchetti
spared no one at his Shaftesbury Avenua studio, and no
dan ces
doubt/ they sweated the flu germs. out. Diaghilev
Cyre Beacunt hoticial ihau Diegkilew , lounges Suit
and Honlug Rar cere ditactts shubly!


had had too many frights during the war, including the
frjht
daily, Lae of threatened starvation, for this to bother
him much, especially as the season was to last six months.
Les Femmes on opening night, with Lopokova, Woizikovsky
and Idzikowsku, was a great triumph and set the tone for
un X ectedy
in Hecompury
the rest of the season,
been
though everyone/had
very
Lla
nervous about how the English would take/a highly stylised
Venetian work.
According to Osbert Sitwell, who was
in the house, Lopokova won / new devotees for the Russian
unlt hes d ca
Audieince
Ballet E
euse Feeling for her was
of a tender and intimate kind-- ro
Mapnenlons com-
a ferchi
binationof virtuosity with/youthful awkwardness. Sher
Kad-treun-hardly more than
hild 1Tr Pragnilev's second
ari
when she had fainted - 1 the Tatiway station
oTr O
NL n exci itement
Karsavinasaid
that te had
erness and
Within a month she was the company's most
celebrated ballerina, though Diaghilev lost her for
some years to an American impresario who cleverly snatçed
her away.
'Whether she danced or talked,' Karsavina
seid
wrote about her, 'her whole frame-quivered with excite-
7 ment, she bubbled all over.'
While in London Diaghilev dave-an-ihterview to the
Daily Mail in which he attacked German composers, among
them Beethoven, Brahms and Schumann, as 'dummies' whose
work was 'poison gas'. He enjoyed this kind of thing.
He added that England was artistically 'Bochefied', and
added, 'The war was nothing else but a struggle between
two cultures, and this struggle is not concluded by the
victory of arms.' His choice of Spanish and Italian
subjects, with French artists and composers collaborating,
was a definite cultural choice: he seemed to see in
the opposite, monumental type of art a dangerous inflex-
ibility---madness at one end and logic at the other-
which shut the door on that EE
te defiantly
humanistic'fusion' of Htten the ideal ballet performance.


Fond 5
Successful as the/season was, Diaghilev could not get
Vhe - & asn was
used to conditions at the Coliseum. Tyey mhere still d
daneing when the Armistice came on November 11. Diagh-
ilev, Massine and Osbert Sitwell dined together at
Sitwell's house in Swan Walk that evening, and after-
welbod
wards theywent to Trafalgar Square together to mix mix
with the over-excited crowds.
Like all artists after
great massacres, Massine was 'strangely unmoved' A He
realised all of a sudden what a tremendous role Diaghil-
qwer,
ev had played in his lifer dutthe last few yearsk hrow auol kow
ageously
he had bolstered his and 4 H
dancerts morale,
keep
while he himself got weaker and
kms
weaker, 7 fhad ottmg
Te ato feverish activity
as dancer and choreographh, as if to hide from him the
true facts of their predicament.
And perhaps this
helped Massine to see, as he stood with Diaghilev in
Trafalgar Square, that what the crowd was celebrating


was not the end of war but that of civilisation.
From the Coliseum the company moved on to the
Alhambra, and the new season opened on 30 April1919
with Les Sylphides, Les Femmes de Bonne Humeur and
Petrouchka.
It lasted until the end of July. At
least there was now money.
Diaghilev bought himself
a completely new wardrobe and appeared in the theatre
wearing a new bowler hat, a new suit with dove-grey
spats, a new overcoat and a stick that looked Het
expensive.
He walked backstage and the dancers
crowded round him, his 'children', fingering his
clothes and making admiring noises, while he smiled
proudly. The recption of La Boutique Fantasque,
set in Naples in the 1860s, was perhaps more expected
now that the English had shown their appreciation of
the other Italian piece, Les Femmes. But it was wonder-
fully exhilarating after those war-years just the same.
The Times adored 'this mixture of childlike gaiety and
ballet-bouffe mime and dance'.
Roger Fry acclaimed
the Derain set, and called him a major painter.
That
arfist now began to exhibit in London, at the Mansard
gallery. his ( was fouDighulev wanldiv: 2 his decon neudv le art,
att!
A few
after
'scenic
days
the opening Lopokova vanished.
The headlines in an evening newspaper was the first
most of the company knew about it.
Massine had just
one and a half hours to find a substitute, and chose
Vera Nemchinova, who gave an excellent performance.
Lopokova returned a few days later, offering no explan-
ation. Cyril Beaumont, whowas a close friend of Rar,
bopokovala, had noticed a cooling of her relations
with her husband Randolfo Barocchi, partly due to
bartly h
overwork on her part, and the strains/of the war.
She would sometimes lean back in her chair in her
dressing room, before the make-up mirror, and sigh,
'How tired I am!' One night- -Thursday, July 10--
tellte Rad
shehad had/enough, and left her house to stay with
some Russian friends, saying she would never dance
again. She was not alone in feeling the strain


aftre months of a poor diet. Later in the year, during
the company's autumn season at the Empire theatre,
Idzikowsky staged another 'disapperance'.
He went
to Cyril Beaumont's ballet shop and watched him printing
as the evening wore on to performance-time.
Beaumont
reminded him that he ought to be leaving for the Empire,
but the dancer said he preferred watching a man print
a book.
In the end, as it got past nine, Beaumont
said, 'I'd better tell Grigoriev where you are'. He
went to the-stage-door-nf the Empire and found Diaghilev
estterly
pacing
on the stage.
'Have you seen Idzikowsky?" Diaghilev
asked him.
'Yes, Beaumont said, 'he's at my shop'.
'What the devil'As he Aoing there?' Diaghilev snapped.
'Printing', Beaumont said.
'Printing! Diaghilev
shouted, opening his mouth and screwing his eyeglass
into his eye, with a gasp of'mingled rage and astonish-
ment'. For this 'disapperance' there was punishment--
niaghilerorderedthat in fupute all Idzikowsky's roles
were to be doubled, not a comfortable thing for a
principal dancer.
By this time Karsavina had rejoined the company
and found no difficulty at all in adjusting herself to
the 'new taste' of ballets like Parade. At the same
time she was a little afraid for Diaghilev---that he was
moving away from the origins of ballet, really from
its meaning, with a certain 'eclecticism'.
'Though
it required a great detachment at times from my own personal
sentiments, she said, 'I could follow Diaghilev with
a clear conscience in a difficult task, perhaps even with
f more satisfaction thanjn works to which I am naturally


suited.
But there I had to stop.'
But why stop?
For Diaghilev stopping would have made his whole enter-
prise, from the beginning, meaningless.
Indeed, it
would have made even the classical dancing, for which
Karsavina and most of the other great dancers of the
time were 'naturally' suited, stale and finally unwanted
by the very audiences which were enraptured by them.
Art must evolve---there is no other way of keeping even
its roots and traditions alive.
The modern audience,
delighted by a Tchaikowsky pas de deux choreographed
in the traditional style, would simply not be there
without ballets like Parade and Le Tricorne, not to say
Faune and Le' Sacre, quite apart from their value.
Delight is never enough on its own. By always concent-
rating on evolution-- -even at the expense of artistic
value---Diaghilev made it possible for Maurice Béjart
ballets to be conceived half a century after his death.
Had he 'stopped', ballet would have stopped, even class-
ical ballet.
Karsavina got a tremendous ovation, and it was
planned that she would dance the miller's wife in Le
Tricorne.
Felix---also in London---wauld teach her
the Spanish steps.
Picasso had joined them too, and
a studio was hired for him in Covent Garden wherehe
could work on the Tricorne set.
Karsavina's part in that ballet rouesd the audience to
great excitement---and this had the effect of making her dance
with a power she had hardly known in herself before.
roles
Thus, unwilling as she might be to take modern parts,
they played their part in the evolution of her dancing.


As for Felix, he never got beyond the corps de
ballet, apart from his purely teaching role for Le
Tricorne. He simply could not adapt himself to the
classical style, though he wore himself out night and
day with practice at the barre. A few weeks after the
opening of Tricorpe, which he must have seen as so
ond
deebly
HUCh his own work, for which he did nocjeutricient credit
on the hoardings, he was found in the middle of the
night dancing in front of the altar at St Martins-in -the
Fields, just down the road from the Coliseum. tpp-
arentiy He had. thought the red light at-that-time over
churel
LRA
theyentrance fthe
II rch-demoted a brothel, and had
smashed a window and climbed, mn. He was taken to a mental
home at Epsom, and never recovered his sanity. He
died there in 1941.
Between the Alhambra and the Empire seasons there
was a short holiday for Diaghilev and Massine in Italy.
where Massine studied the commedia dell'arte scenarios
and began to feel dissatisfied with his choreography,
which needed 'new breadth'.
The Pulcinella ballet was
forming in his mind, and he bought a pulcinella mask
from an old actor in Naples which had once belonged to
Antonio Petito in the eighteenth century.
Diaghilev
suggested Pergolesi music for this, and they went together
to S. Pietro- a-Maiella to search among the Pergolesi
manuscripts.
They found fifteen unpublished pieces,
and Diaghilev gave them to Stravinsky to orchestrate.
Back in London they gave a gala performance before
King Alfonso of Spain, the Shah of Persia and King
George V. It looked as if fortune was set to shine
on the company again, especially as it was preparing
for a season at the Opéra, with premières of Tricorne
and Boutaque.
There were intense preparations during these new
cthar
months for/ new ballets, in a post-war orgy of ideas.
Diaghilev wanted ariet made out of Stravinsky's
poem
symplonic
CRant
E CaF Le Rossignol, and asked Matisse to Ao the set.
Massine went to Nice to meet the artist,
tatisse who
lived in a penthouses andlne of the hest rooms was


filleol
almost entirely wak E by a giant birdcage with
hundreds of exotic birds. fromev
part - or the world.
Matisse was naturally delighted by the Rossignol idea.
Idzikowsky danced the mechancial nightingale, Karsavina
the real one, while Sokolova danced Death. In February
nip.
they were all in Rgme, and Diaghilev asked Picasso to
design Pulcinella, with an abstract décor. At the end
* of May (1920) Le Astuzie Femminile, the Cimarosa -
opera, was to be performed in Paris with a company of
Italian singers.
Cimarosa had once served at the
court of Catherine 11 as chapel master, and the divert-
issement at the end of the opera was for this reason
called Ballo Russo. It enchanted Diaghilev, and he
thought Massine had mishandled the choreography.
They quarrelled rather violently. Like So many of
Diaghilev's most gifted associates Massine wished after-
wards that he had said nothing, because Diaghilev was
great enough to be heard with respect at all times,
especially in an artistic matter.
There was no
question, yet, of a break between them.
Massine had
been ballet master for six years, and Diaghiter La
mmTa otu
deas. fhis was
the usual preliminary of a rupture -the favourite began
Hemusten
to feel outside the warm glow of) hi admiration.
Yet Dighlev's
loyalty was tremendous.
One day at the Opéra
Karsavina was trying to find her way through the endless
identical corridors when she heard Diaghilev hurrying
behind her: 'Tata!
I've been looking for you every-
where.
Today is the tenth anniversary of the Firebird,
we must celebrate!'
In 1920 the company appeared at La Scala


ccurd
in Milan, in a not very successful season,1 /then
returned, in a restless and exhausted state, to Monte-
carlo.
On the day it was due to leave again for
Paris there was a train-strike and Diaghilev was in
despair.
But one train left, with sleepers, which
they managed to take. During the night it was derailed
and lurched over to one side.
Massine woke up and
found a bottle of mineral water pouring out its contents
from the top berth on to an Englishman on a lower one,
and heard the Englishman call out, 'I say, could there
be a leak?'
SThe dancers, including Karsavina, tugether-with
Diagh
A Matisse, managed to crawl out of their
compartments, and found that they were stranded in a
Tain Jde
small place called Bar le Daojthre-hourp/Eros Paris.
Apparently strikers had cut the railway line.
The:
was
Pans
compauy
were taken to the capital by road, and the season
opened on 8 May with a chairty performance. On 15


May Pulcinella was given for the first time.
Massine
dancelPulcinella, Kafsavina Pimpinella, with Tchernicheva
as Prudenza and Nemchinova as Rosetta.
The theme was
taken from one of the Neapolitan scenarios Massine had
found, called The Four Pulcinelle, and Biecing together.
fragments had not been an easy job for any of the three
collaborators -Picasso, Stravinsky or Massine. Most of
was
wete
the work frad-boen done in Paris,, andi there had-been
Gntinual
good-many rows. Also
the_costumes had failed to come
up to Diaghilev's expectations.
Theri
rearrange-
Piews)
msuical
ments sometimes upset him. r Stravinsky was often horr-
ified when he saw the steps Massine had set to. his
edr
Prar
music---which
barly
was arriving in-the choreographer's
istudio pieee
as it was written.
Stravinsky
felt 'that Massine's vigorous dancing suited a larger
orchestra than could possibly be used for Pergolesi,
and-so the choreography had to be constantly modified
and restrained. But, probably because of the arduous
collaboration, Pulcinella was a totally. harmonious wwk,
product and for Stravinsky this was one of Massine's
finest choreographic achievements.
Towards_the end
of the same season Diaghilev asked Massine to re-
choreograph Stravifskz's-Sacre de Printemps, and Strav-
insky could now-admit that he had not been-entirely happy
with Nijinsky's work. The new projects toppled over
each other.
In the autumn, during another English
tour, Massine bégan rehearsing Sokolova as the Chosen
Hee le 3
-Maiden: inSacre du Printemps, which had its first per-
formance
C rsion at the Théâtre des Champs
Mastine Cnoulted cnlt
Elysées in Paris om 15 December.
Hatiss
stastin
Stravinsky before te egal work on this, and they
lane
agreed on the principles: uhich
I T
Tew
versions Nijinsky, with the smallest knowledge of
music and choreographic technique, had followed the
time', and slowed up the time when it became imposs-
M ussine
ible.
Already Matisse was working towards his basic
principles of harmony and counterpoint, as the key to
aud
choreographic composition, sothat he could make a


bridge over Stravinsky's broken rhythms which was
entirely to the composer's satisfaction. Many people
A a and
still prferred Nijinsky's version, and fourd Massine's
version too 'mechanical' or 'lacking in the warmth and
pathos of the original'. But others found it 'brilliant-
ly' different.
Massine's work was not easy.
Uulike
Nijinsky he was a born choreographer, and
tell gen
necessary for mouiding
nto
were
snowted
mna aubhorT
Hts jerky movements, in
He was
contrast to the sustained line of his concepts. never
satisafied with short four- or five-bar developments
as even Fokine was, fascinated great many, d seemed
aclimax or sirer aussian Ballet , S efforts.
Yet the London eason was not a success.
Diagh-
ilev had trouble with the Covent Garden management,
after there were serious gaps in the stalls.
Though
he paid his dancers, the production had to go into
liquidation and the last performance was cancelled.
The masses of flowers sent to the theatre for the last
curtain-calls were diverted to the Savoy hotel.
was owed money by the management and a court-case
folllowed which dragged on for years: in the end
he was repaid part of the sum. Pulcinella was a great
success.
Karsavina was dancing as well as Tchernicheva,
Nemchinova, Sokolova, Woizikovsky.
Cyril Beaumont
found Massine's dancing remarkable for the wag in which
he made certain steps 'expressive in themselves', and
'it was extraordinary to observe how, by the tilt of
his head and the angle of his body, and by the varying
speed and variety of his movements, he was able to
suggest his thoughts and emotions' (that is, not by
direct mime).
Diaghilev was obliged to return to Paris.
Not
lue
until January 1921 Aas there tola ahother date---at the
Teatro Costanzi in Rgme.
He had to borrow money for
his own needs. Lyckily he had a new friend in Gabrielle
Chanel, and of course Misia Sert was still behind him,
scheming and whispering on his behalf.
An English
tour was fixed up which proved one of the biggest


disasters yet.
One of the managers esoppaed with
the week's receipts, and the company was on the point
of being disbanded.
Gabrielle Chanel came to his
rescuer..with a loan disg some describe as large and
others TIKE SOT
L U a I rasyonly a few thoudand
francs.
ver muce it was, it got things going again.
Mlle Chanel had a particular admiration for Stravinsky,
Loucz. monenl
and there was talk of RufteinE Sacrex Some of the
company's now tatty costumes were renewed.
Walter
Nuvel had now joined the company again from Finland,
where Diaghilev had sent him money to help him through
family difficulties after the war.
At Victoria
station, where the two old friends met, Nouvel found
Diaghilev 'a little stouter' but 'gay and pleased with
life, and more energetic than ever'.
Now Rolf de Maré
was managing the Champs Elysées theatre in Paris for
his Swedish ballet company, and put Jacques Hébertot---
a friend of Nouvel's---in charge there.
The Swedish
ballet happened not to be ready to take up its date,
and Hébertot suggested a three-week season of Russian
Ballet to fill the gap. Sacre, in its Massine version,
was seen again.
It was in Rome that the row between Diaghilev and
aliesoly
Massine came to a head. There hadybeen inereasing a kemhe
Clarfz
scenes. betmeen
Now Vera) Savina) and Massine
(now
started an affair.
No doubt neither of them made it
a secret.
For some time now Massine had been restive--
new
for new scenes and faces.
Diaghilev really did no'
more than oblige him by parting company.
One day
he summoned Vera Savina to his room and told her
that he wished her to concentrate on her dancing and
noty her affair with Massine.
She must give up one
or the other.
If she chose dancing he would mould
her into his leading ballerina.
He asked her to dine
with him several times in the next few days, and at
the end of January he suggested drawing up a contract
in which his conditions were specified.
It threw
her into a distressing state of indecision.
But in


the end she chose Massine.
In the spring Massine
asked her to marry him, and the tension between him
and Diaghilev mounter. hecale unheasable.
One day Grigoriev took Massine aside and told him tav
he had been dismissed from the company.
Although the he
dancer had been wanting nothing else for some months
>ull
Musiine
it/came as a shock. tohim: - te felt frightened and
confused, and very much alone. It was something to
sever yourself from a man like Diaghilev: there was
no telling how pale life Manes seem afterwards. Annol
Ae always regretted that final quarrel.
The actual
reasons-- -both choreographic and intimate-- -were not
Tre men,
hopel ika
important. oang had been associated veith-eon-other
for five years---it seemed enough, for the time being.
Antly Kew ideas had begunto come more slowly.
Yet Massine
blamed himself, not Diaghilev: 'I couldn't have been
right!' he said something like storty I tiue our years later,
'I must have been wrong to quarrel with such a man!'
And as to Diaghilev disapproving of his marfiage---
as he had disapproved of Nijinsky's---'Well, even
that---yes, such a great man must be permitted such tese
liberties!-- -even to the point of disapproving of
marriage---you see, he did so very much for us!'
Diaghilev had once said of him, Massine understands
everything from just half a word---one day he'll be
one of us! I And now he was. He was now 'formed',
as Nijinsky had been formed. He was strong enough
tofly on his own---at the age of twenty-four.
Vera- Savine
Vera-Sevine-end Massine were married/some weeks
later and stayed on in Rome, where they were approached
by Walter Mecchi, the Italian director of the Teatro
Colon in Buenos Aires. Massine beganto form/a company
of his own and was even able later on to draw some of
Diaghilev's finest dancers atiag from him, after the
Itpe
cefs
failure of tEs grand Sleeping DE 5 enterprise in
London.
Lopokova, Sokolova, Ninette de Valois,
Woizikovky and Slavinsky joined him.
It was rare that a dancer left Diaghilev without
continuing to benefit from him.


The Last Trip to Venice
Poverty was a great shock for Diaghilev when it
hit him again.
The fact was that post-war audiences
did not finance lavish productions as the pre-war ones
had done.
The same happened in the theatre, and Bern-
ard Shaw was among those who noticed the decline in
box office receipts, due to the end of the abonnement
system which had been a kind of patronage.
Popular
as it was becoming, ballet proved too expensive at its
produttion -end for even capacity houses to bring in the
recouping margin.
The smallest gap in a large theatre
like Covent Gardenneed only be repeated a handfull of
nights for the management to start looking worried.
However Misia Sert or Gabrielle Chanel 'whispered'
for him now, the compact society' of pre-war years
was no longer there, or rather it was in liquidation.
Massine's departure, however much Diaghilev may
have felt the need for it, was a worse blow to him in
a certain sense than that of Nijinsky. Any rupture
of an intimate kind was a blow to his resilient yet
strangely fragile nervous system. In business he
could be gruff and make a show of ruthlessness.
love the show was less convincing. And his new
loneliness always tortured him. For in these post-
ke had ever beon.
war years he was more alone than befa -
ase
The Wotld of Art family was no longer there.
That
is, he could call on Bakst or Benois any time he wished,
gones
but the family atmosphere was tot there. Nowadays
Gimnslusg Rasl
beer lille
He war


his will to show art as an evolving process was a lone
one. He worked with Picasso, Derain, Braque, Utrillo,
di Chirico---they were simply the new artists, they had
establsshed themselves, and he allowed them to bring
their influence to the ballet.
In music it was Darius
Milhaud, Poulenc, Eric Satie, de Falla, Auric.
Many
of his old collaborators, especially the Russians, who
perhaps felt that he had ceased to be essentially Russ-
thouglit
howadoy
ian, began-feet that /he was falling over himself to
be up-to-date: it was enough, they said, to tell Rinshilav A
that he was being 'old fashioned'
his dislikede a
hew idea
comething to get his immediate approval.
But the
fact as that post-war audiences were different from
pre-war ones.
The Russian Ballet in the pre-war sense
no longer existed, precisely as the Esarist régime no
longer existed.
Society had undergone fearfully tur-
bulent changes, and was still doing so: in that sense
Wosla
WorTd
the first/Mar led into the Second,War, and the restless
Hem
years in betweeny were rintz an aftermath and a preparation.
This turbulence was in Diaghilev's work. He recognised
it in the artists he now commissioned.
Sometimes he
stand out
deliberately revived tradition, to make the new/all the
mone shetply:
Princets
sounder
tesson: The Sleeping Beauty was such
a revival.
He now found himself without a choreographer.
Woizikovski was not enthusiastic, and Sokolova was
simply not good enough.
The work fell---it was a
matter of urgency---into the hands of Larionov, who
worked closely with Slavinsky.
It was partly des-
peration, too, that made Diaghilev engage a Spanish
troupe for a ballet called Cuadro Flamenco, against with
Picasso's setting.
Lopokova returned to the company
for a revival of Firebird. And there was a new ballet,
Chout.
This was the Larnonov-Slavinsky work, and
proved something of a flop.
The music---folk tunes
and jazz---was by Prokoviev, and Larionov alco designed
a startlingly colourful set which Cyril Beaumont, who
saw the ballet in London, thought the best part of the
propuction.
As a whole, Beaumont felt, 'the choreo-
graphy was disconnected and lacked design'.


clearly would not work to have painters as ballet-
masters.
Dates followed one GH another unfailingly, but it
Kand-ro-houtt
was a daystosday existence.
There was not the breadth
of the old days---neither the long seasons,booked far
ahead, nor the money for pre-production costs.
These
days you snatched what you could get, at almost any size!
of theatrel In 1921 there was a Spanish tour, with In Madnd
the king of Spain attending esl every performance, inHadrid
In Seville Diaghilev met C.B.Cochran, the London impres-
ario, and a contract was drawn up for a season at the
Prince's theatre.
This was in Easter Week.
The com-
pany then travelled to Paris, taking in a one-week
season
TAiAIEE
ia Lyons on the way.
In Paris the Gaieté
Lyrique had been engaged through Astruc.
Though hts Ike
Spanish dancers were liked, especially the lovely
thei
Maria Dalbaicin, then under twenty, i/ was felt to be
dancing
foreign to the Diaghilev Ballet.
When the company
arrived in London forits-Prinve'stheatre-season
withthe SamE-Tepertoire, one of those little incid-
ents occurred which meant a great deal to Diaghilev:
OnDiaghwes a black cat walked across the stage.
ma su A
cod
it Wes dis-
nap 9
astrous
And as it happened Cochrane lost over five
potenls
thousand pounds.
taghit /had found a new secretary in Paris.
During the Gieté Lyrique season Soudeikine happened
to be painting the portrait of A seventeen-year-old
uspool Kochno
Russian boy called Boris Kochno. He decided Etogirel
la vit
mmt
B S Diaghilev on his
behalf: Kochno was to suggest the revival of Salomé
at the Opéra.
Soudeikine told the boy exactly what
to say, and even supplied him with the answers to
questions which he supposed Diaghilev would ask.
At ten o'clock on the morning of February 27 1921
Kochno arrived at the Hotel Scribe and asked to see
Rail
Diaghilev. Theporter told him that Diaghilev had
not been staying at the hotel for years, but would


Kochno
probably be found at the Continental.
So HEl went
along th the Continental.
There, to his astonishment,
hall
the porter gave him the number of Diaghilev's room,
after glancing up at the clocks and without even asking
his name. It was his lucky morning.
Diaghilev was
expecting someone to call st precisely that time, and
contrary to precedent Diaghilev always refused to see
hod
He Vislr
strangers) heftold the porter to send/him up without
announcing him. Diaghilev's valet met Kochno at the
2 He
door, and alsed him to wait in the corridor a moment.
sriite
walkad
Then Diaghilev came out and quicklyL towards him, apolo-
tta delay
gising for reen
I LT ta
Ant He walked the boy
towards the hotel's Turkish salon.
There they sat
down. Kochno went through his speech, which he had
never really mastered, and at the endjabruptly) stoppedf
had
Diaghilev seemed sdeases
heard nothing. He simply sat
there biting lebewing his tongue with thought.
Then he seemed
murmured
to rouse himself from a deep sleep and/ said, 'How old are
Kochno told him.
Diaghilev then egan asking
him questions about the Soviet Unionr and the jeffects
L ia
of the Revolution". (Kochno had just come from st
Petersburg. He listened to the boy's replies closely,
then a dream seemed to take hold of him, and he began
to gaze over Kochno's head, quite lost, his monocle
fallen from his eye. They sat there for nearly three
hours. Diaghilev took him to the door and said, 'We!
will meet again.'
A few days later Boris Kochno
became his personal secretary, and left with him and
Stravinsky for Spain.
Diaghilev had always wanted to present a full
Tchaikowsky evening, and he felt that London was an
ideal place for it.
And partly he wished to regain
a large audience with a spectacle that was not outstand-
ingly modern.
He thought of Aurora's Wedding, on
which Tchaiwkowsky had worked closely with Petipa. It
had been produced in 1890-in a HORt lavish Marynsky
production with Carlotta Branza. .as Princess Aurora and
Dieyhile
Enrico Cecchetti as Bluebird. L He was anxious to see


hst
tuthrovideal wilt hew humbers,
it/re-choreographéd) /and thoough Walter Nouvel began
negotiating with Bronia Nijinska, who had managed to get
out of the Soviet Union that same year. He also thought
of an engaging publicity-coup: L Branza herself was then Tarlotta
living in Paris, and he signed her on to play the wicked
yiH
fairy Carabosse.
And He drew up contracts for Wilzak,
Spessivày Schollar, Spessivstseval Egorova, Trefilova and Vladimirov.
After endless arguments Bakst agreed to do the setting.
Wediling
was to be as lavish as the original production, and Dinghulw'!
ime
LS most expensive venture yet. A contract was signed
with Oswald Stoll for a season at the Alhambra, on which
large sums of money were to be advanced, repayable out
Inevitanl
of the box office receipts.
But) the production began to
kad been
estimaled cost more than/ B I er - bud
Tad
eseen.
Also Bakst
delayed.
There were more arguments.
Bakst, still
smarting from what he felt to be Diaghilev's earlier
rahim
also
infidelity, insisted that he should/be given the design
of Stravinsky's forthcoming opera Mavra. Should Dia-
ghilev not give him Mavra Bakes I was to be paid double
Weddiig
for the Eogatkowsty.
They screamed at each other
can L dreu
cn of ack in Bakst's Paris apartment.
The painter dashed in and
Rfeck out of the room applying cold compresses to his head.
And In the end Diaghilev signed.
Then he told Bakst
that he had no intention of honouring it. But Bakst
had got what he wanted, and the work wentforwrd. First
night was postponed many times, and the Alhambra proved
itself inferior backstage than the Marynsky, for the
enchancted forest refused to grow even on the première.
Only creaking was heard- and the forest stood still.
Diaghilev sobbed
pryaia
afterwards.
And some date hisydecline
from that evening.
The truth was that he was already
a sick man, and turned fifty. He began to look diff-
Hhiface
erent. He had always worn a certain tired look entis
fre -dispelled only by Italy.
Now it seemed to dig
into his skin, and circle his eyes. The Sleeping
es In ls
Princess, was a triumph despite the first-night mishaps.
be called
There were capacity houses.
The press was favourable.
But then the houses inexplicably began to fall off, at least
enough to make Diaghilev's productiong-costs seem
foolhardy now.
During rehearsals he had not simply not


understood Stoll's horror of his/spending.m more-than
nated
The season had to close at the beginning hip.
of February. The vast cast had to be paid; there were
between thirty and forty F EH e
dancers, some of them
doubling up, apart from the Gorps de ballet. Tethe L
entire
evening was a delight. And it had all been done with such
care. Diaghilev had as usual rehearsed the lights inter-
minably.
He disregarded the mounting overtime
and
as usu payz A
the fact that backstage staff liked to eat, and/went on
3 C k hes
Tina
until hehad everything et
recessa ary
had
He/edited this old ballet with infinite care, trimming it
madem
to the,taste, ftris s-andieneea, (which he took to be his oun).
h b taste. Diaghflev 'seemed.to feel instinctively what
was good and what was bad', Cyril Beaumont said of these
rehearsals, 'and when he was preparing the Belle---as he
always referred to the ballet---for pradtction, he did
I not hesitate to remove some of the weaknesses of the
original version.'
It was during these rehearsals that
he ordered the gold braid to be cut off Vladimirov's
superb tunic, and shortened the skirt, so as to facilitate
his elevation, though the tailor almost wept.
The
Slpeping Princesd was in fact the climax of his living
role in the ballet.
Deft cutting is perhaps the most
difficult art of all, especially in the theatre.
sluggish scene, about to be thrown out altogether, can
often with masterful cutting become the most dramatic
scene of all, a key to the rest of a production.
In Serge Lifar's possession there used to be
Diaghilev's notes on The Triumph of Neptune, showing
the meticulous care he gave to every detail of a
production: 'Scene V (Fleet Street). Cut score in
first part, and lengthen jig'. ...Journalists have
quills behind ears...Two latge shawls for both women...
Add two wings and introduce six flying fairies (two
new costumes), sprinkling snow...
Scene V11 (Dance of
Goddess) Cut music...
Scene 1X... green spot for


clowns and later white---stronger---for journalists
and sailor...
Scene X1 (Neptune) musical cuts at the
end of the pas d'action?... Cuts in "Matelotte".'
The original sum guaranteed by Oswald Stoll for
The Sleeping Princessdwas £10,000. During production
Diaghilev made a further call for £5000.
When he had
spent that he asked for another £5000.
The budget
thus doubled itself, and Stoll's estimate of probabln
box office returns was rendered dangerously close to


break-even point.
It only needed a few slack evenings
to plunge the production into a deficit.
It was far more
this that toppled the production than London's failure
to support it. Like Edwardes years before, Diaghilev's
present London man-of-allwwork, Edwin Evans, concluded
MMis was C Frue. Draghies)
that he had no business sense whatsover. H had a great
deal of business-sense. Only he did not give a damn for
money, 16
it Money was simply not an important matter for him,
and he had no time for people who disliked losing it.
He managed to borrow £1000 from a millionaire,
but there was nothing left to pay the company with.
He dashed off to Paris, leaving Nouvel to look after
the last week of the season (with the dancers threatening
a strike).
Somehow they were paid off, and Nouvel managed
to join him.
They had no money for meals.
Diaghilev
sold a present from Lady Ripon, a pearl stud.
Another
dot Le
admirer of Stravinsky (now bannitges Diaghilev's side
Collaboralop
/ came' forward and paid the company--Princess Edmond de
Poliganac. It was a close shave.
tnd The Sleeping
Princess was perhaps Diaghilev's finest production,
tor
in terms of craftmanship and completeness, tor: it gave
a resumé of everything the Russian Ballet had been.
His new protégé, Boris Kochno, was quick to become
'one of the family', responsible for the company's
libretti.
He it was who collaborated with Stravinsky
in the preparation for Mavra, and wrote most of the
books for the company's ballets between 1923 and 1929,
ev deanh
He was not liked by
everyonegd would tutoyer Diaghilev in front of the
company.
Eor Diaghilev also entrusted him with the
general supervision of the productions: here he might lave
lgen
le accused of an excessive belief in youth---yet he
showed a certain instinct too, as Koghno, C
still under
twenty, knew how to make himself feared, and was re-
garded by mostof the dancers as the one Diaghilevsba chosen
'suceessor', now that.he himself was be-
coming more and more aloof---not simply frpm the com-
pany's affairs butfrom ballet altogether.


He did not after all give Mavra to Bakst, and ginally
Brf
bat déc cops 6a
Hepre
lost an old friendo bd
B e
war
rate
And Stravinsky supp-
o te settagn.
orted him in his choice of Survage The season at the
Opéra was not a great success, with Renard choregraphed
by Nijinska, the music by Stravinsky. Also The loss of The
Sleeping Princess was a great disappointment to the Opéra
management: the stettings and production material were
held in London against Diaghilev's debt there. The
shorter Aurora's Wedding had to be subftiuted, with
Benois's costumes for Le Pavillon and some new ones by
Gontcharova.
And that, just to prove how_untiringly
impish the theatre alweys is, proved one of the most
successful ballets on the Diaghilev repertoire:
Since London was temporarily closed to him he
accepted a tough tour that-took
pany to Marseilles,
Geneva, Biarritz, Bordeaux and Belgium.
The dates
pe eut
were coming too fast to make new ideas whict(rarely Jceme
to over-pressed minds possible.
The company---its
dancers and its directorate---was getting stale, and Dia-
ghilev began to look for some way of establishing it
cRoice
in one place.
Montecarlo was the obvious place, as
his associations with it dated from the beginnings of
the Russian Ballet.
He already had part of his company
here
on loan to the opera house, and now he suggested making
this the greater part, with a season for himself every
April, on a contract to be renewed every year.
The
terms were agreed and Les Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo
came into being. Still he did not buy a house there.
He continued to live out of suitcases, as he had lived for
fourteen years or mornone. se
But it did give him the
breathing space he needed, and something of his earlier
mellow serenity returned to his face, as he became a


unth mgal
a tal
Pica iss
Beaux
Ars
Le tister c M nlle at
Zals
yanel ta)z), -
lo l 6 Brayn
- RalG,
Kho wd cen u ual feslical ) fie asF.
Piice appuves de
Bains
ke lrur éaucal Cike Sorier
lid C Ane
itre plag


courtier again.
He felt at home. At the court
of Monaco he was virtually a minister of the fine arts.
Finding a court in 1923 was quite an achievement.
It hadthe theatrcial atmosphere he was used to, and,
being small, was relatively uncorrupt, like a Mediterr-
anean Weimar.
ththe sAme year He tried to found an
arts centre there.
He visualised a Museum of Modern Art,
with royal portraits painted by Picasso, and a Palais des
Beaux Arts at the Théâtre de Monte Carlo (then a
variety
was
theatre)h to be remodelled by Braque into exhibition halls,
to house an annual festival of the arts.
The Prince
approved-- --the bureaucrats (the Société des Bains de
Mers) did not. And there the plan ended.


remporands
He/lost Cecchetti, who accepted an invitation to
become director of the dancing schools at La Scala, Milan.
For some years now he had been living in London, but
found the climate more than he could take.
Nijinska told
Diaghilev of some young dancers she had been training in
Kiev, and in January 1923 they arrived in Paris--
Lapitsky, Unger, the brothers Hoyer and an unexpectedly
handsome, ignorant and lively young creature called Serge
Lifar.
After a glance at them all, and an audition which
showed that these were not the days of Nijinsky, Diaghil-
ev packed them off to Montecarlo for rigorous classes
under Bronia. Les Noces, on a wartime idea of Stravinsky, n - p.
was under production, and Felia Drubovska was to dance
the Bride.
The ballet harked back to Sacre in being
about the half-pagan rites that had once surrounded the
marriage of peasants in Russia, and Nijinska's choreo-
bbe
pleasontly
uplersautl graphy was/in a startlingly new style--/startling at
for
least for 1923 Paris, and) 1926 London---in which masses
of dancers were used like constructions, leaning and
- piles
twisting in pyràmids] ad columns. Sgravinsky's original
Une
idea was to have the orchestra onstage in evening dress,
desgu
with the danced part in the form of a divertissement.
There remained of this conception the four pianos on-
stage thieh
Lndon were played by Auric, Dukelsky,
Poulenc and Rieti.
The tones of Gontcharova's seeting
were sombre to the pointof drabness, which may have put
hundon
many of thez critics E an
mhondon into a panning
state of mind at the outset.
It was three years before
Diaghilev plucked up courage to put it on in London at
HIs Majesty's theatre in a programme with Carnaval.
and another new ballet called Les Matelots.
The Times
called it lugubrious' and 'barmecidal' (after the prince
in Arabian nights who offered a beggar a sumptious-
looking feast with nothing under the golden dish-
covers).
H.G.Wells complained in a letter to the
press that it was the most intreesting ballet he had
ever seen.
Cyril Beaumont found that it radiated
'a genuine spirituality', which perhaps explains the


hostility of the press.
For H.G.Wells 'it was an amazing experience to
come out from this delightful display with the warp
and woof of music and vision still running and interweav-
ing in one's mind, and find a little group of critics
flushed with resentment and ransacking the stores of
their minds for cheap trite depreciation of the fresh-
est and strangest thing that they have had a chance to
prisse for a long time'.
The Times's description of
the four pianos as part of the scene Wells called 'wilf-
fully stupid'.
The box office success of Noces at the Gaieté
Lyrique/did Diaghilev's heart good after the disappoint-
ments of The Sleeping Princess. Meanwhile Bakst was
sueing him like mad from London, and managed to have his
Diaghilayts receipts there seized. Most of Bakst's
friends broke with him over this.
But it was the
customary story now: the degree of love and awe
Diaghilev aroused in his collabdytors was matched by
the same degree of anger afterwards.
But Bakst was
no longer a sane man. He wrote hysterical letters
aud
abusing motonly Diaghilev eut ne round him. He
Pars
finally got his money. At the end of the season
Diaghilev organised a fête at the Galerie des Glaces
at Versailles with a sumptious preoramme, amdsenfrcnice
three thousand francs failed to buy a seat.
seemed that all of a sudden Diaghill was back in his
seat of original power, at the head of Parisian taste.
According to Benois, who visited him in Montecardo
after nine years' absence, Diaghilev had passed from
his earlier period as the man who 'simply created the
atmosphere of adventure and hard work' to a new one
in which he 'directly imposed. his ideas'.
It was
true that Diaghitev was now working closely with
Cocteau, Satie, Poulenc, Auric, Braque, Matie Laurencin,
tallel
Milhaud, and was looking for new ideas, even feverish-
rosfiutee
ly, for dates. Aa
But the change was
perhaps only in Benois---that he saw Diaghilev with a


certain detachment now , Lin his proper role, which
clote
Rad
Kim
the actual work ofjoollaborationyso often Ridd-from the
coHt aborato
Benois found Diaghilev's taste poor
hmby
in a lot of things: tha
felt that Massine, Kochno and latterly
Lifar had 'genuine talent' but also, because of Dia-
ghmlev's influence,
B F
€ towards 'much
that was absurd and simply in bad taste'.
With his Paris composers Diaghilev had unearthed
a Gounod manuscript (Le Medicin Malgré Lui) and decided
to try opera again for his Montecarlo season.
With
Nouvel he went to Italy to recruit singers, and got
his composers to write musical recitatives in the
Gounod manner to replace the spoken ones of the manu-
script.
Benois did the settings.
The 1924 Monte-
carlo season was brilliant enough, but it was the ballet
part that succeeded, and the only operatic work Diagh-
ilev did after that was Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex, and play
a . eow
hop. then only as a concert performance. K [This was a good Le, Bicho
year for new dancers.
Danilova, Geverova, Balanchine CThe Amse
(then George Melitonovich Balanchivadze,
aged twenty) Parts)wer
bryhidne
Anton
hrm Snex and Efimov.
Dolin,
pis origin came from with
audi i fucd London, a contact of Seraphine Astafieva who was teach- Pruleac settuns' Maris
called Patnck ing at that time in London and wrote to Diaghilev about
Healey-Kay, the young man who had appeared in The Sleeping Princess
and 'improved so much since then'.
This time Diaghil-
ev was happy with what he saw in audition, and packed tte trry
AIM Eeo off to Montecarlo.
One day Cocteau saw Dolin
ragging about in a backstage corridor and thought of
a sort-of' sporting ballet which would not repeat the
weaknesses of Jeux from before the War. Milhaud
did the music in a musical-comedy style, Chanel the
bathing costumes and the constructivist scplptor Laurens
the setting. Le Train Bleu was first given at the
Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris on June 20 1924.
ates
Diaghilev wrote about it himself: 'The first point
about Le Train Bleu is that there is no blue train
in it.
This being the age of speed, it has already
reached its destination and disembarked its passengers.


These are to be seen on a beach which does not exist,
in front of a casino which exists still less.
Overhead
passes an aeroplane which you do not see.
And the plot
represents nothing.
Yet, when it was presented for the
first time in Paris, everybody was unaccountably seized
with the desire to take the blue train to Deauville and
perform refreshing exercises.
Moreover, this ballet is
not a ballet; it is an operette dansée. The music is
composed by Darius Milhaud, but it has nothing in common
with the music which we associate with Darifus Milhaud.
It is danced by the real Russian Ballet, but it has
nothing to do with Russian Ballet.
It was invented for
Anton Dolin, a classical dancer who does nothing classical.
The scenery is painted by a sculptor, and the costumes
are by a great arbiter of fashion who has never made a
costume'.
Touché to Benois!
in Rinvole
Some of Dolin's movements were incredibly danagerous
both to look
'Nothing seemed to hurt
executel
Bean
me, 1 De himsegp said wyota about the London performance of Le Train
Grosse.
Bleu. 'My body for that half hour did not belong to me.
Someone other than myself, someone far greater, had
taken control of it and those senses were telling it what
to do.
It was not then to feel the cuts and bruises it
was sustaining'.
The Paris'premiére "made Boim a star.
The Russian Ballet had a home, and its productions
ytill
played to full houses, butjnot enough came in to keep
the company. solvent.
Also Massine's company, under
the management of Comte Etienne de Baaumont, was appear-
ing in Paris and attracting not only Diaghilev's dancers
ameng
but his collaborators as well----Picasso waseneof them.
Diaghilev was angry. When someone asked him how he
stkar
could feel angry about someone pepe trying to earn tris aw
om living he said, 'This is true, I have no monopoly in
ballet.
But I am a barman.
I have invented a certain
cocktail according to a recipe of my own. You can't
expect me to be anything but annoyed when others come
along and try to combine the same ingredients!
was not a very dangerous anger, since that year Diaghil= Re


Abveal, le war losiay Bronia, unith Shom
Xel had beer aviy enar 2 ti leel-tale tgfs
asiiic ma Hin.
was sending a message via Cecchetti (back again in his
Shaftesbury Avenue studio) to say that he would like to
see Massine again.
They met, and it was like 'a family
reunion'.
Diaghilev told him that he had enjoyed Mass-
ine's Soirées de Paris in Paris, except for the ballet
Beau Danube.
He was also 'intrigued' by another ballet
of Massine's called Mercure, with settings by Picasso.
Later he absorbed this into the Diaghilev Ballet. Mean-
while he asked, 'Will you choreograph two new ballets
for me?'
It was not exactly an invitation to rejoin
the company, and Massine hesitated before saying yes,
precisely as he had done over ten years before at their
second meeting at the Metropole hotel in Moscow.
Dia-
eodly,
ghilev needed a choreographer tt thi time, having found
that Dolin would probably not fit the bill. le could
notlcamentirel onBronia And he admired Massine
for having made his way so successfully-at what an age
too!
was of eee hat Massine should join him in
agreed
Montecarlo.
This was/during the Coliseum season
Dioghle
at the end of 1924 which /had arranged with the in-
the A le Hms
corrigibly optimistic Oswald Stoll.
It was the
was
that
came
Alegotiations with Massine raged on
through Walter Nouvel,. and finally some modus vivendi
was arranged. His first ballets were to be Zephire et
Flor (Taglioni had made her London debut in 1830 in
Didelot's Flore et Zephire) and a 'romp' to be called
Meanwhidle
h. P
Les Matelots. The Coliseum season was successful,
opening with Cimarosiana, which Massine, before leaving
the company, had devised from the ballet sequences in
Cimarosa's opera,and which now included a new number
by Nijinska, a pas de quatre in which the young Lifar
danced. Le Train Bleu was also given.
Cyril Beaumont
found it boring, too much 'the very latest thing',
its only bright spot being Anton Dolin.
This dancer
had, in Beaumont's view, changed radically from his


earlier 'mannered'
now that he had
He cuttol -
days,
been through
orated Dolias the Diaghilev machine. A 'On that night he danced like
sense ,.
a man in ecstasy'; and his steps were such that at any
dancig in
moment 'he could have done himself serious injury and
le Train Bleu ruined his career'.
The press rather went to town on
un ith STrangel, the fact that the two triumphs of the evening---Dolin
n z0
and Sokolova---were 'English', which so annoyed Diaghil-
Jion :
ev that he thretaned not to employ an English dancer
again.
After this it was usual to say that the
umb
wwas
ian' ballet was infact no such thingo In reality the
forugn as :
company only hadv a few British dancers.
On December
broke the news to
dunig
28) journalists
Dia-
rers
ghilev that Bakst had died.
He rushed out into the
intervieu, street in tears.
In Montecarlo Massine met Lifar and the other new
dancers, including Markoval (Alice Marks, another pupit of
Astafieva's pupils), and the new favourite Boris Kochno.
Les Matelots, like Le Train Bleu, had almost no plot---
Slavinsky played the American sailor, Woizikovsky the
Spanish, and Lifar (in his second solo role after Boréas
in Zéphire et Flore) EE the French.
The music was by
Auric, settings and costumes by Pedro Pruna.
It was
in Parin
first given at the Gaité Lyrique/on June 17 1925,
and Lifar made a great impression.
In the same pro-
gramme there was George Balanchine's first effort as
a choreographer, Le Chant du Rossignol, with Markova as
the real nightingale.
Beaumont
Etd
not-remember
Massine did not dance.
According to Serge Lifar, the young Balanchine had great
WIt
ttar
difficulty in working Or
as Diaghilev was as e lah
la Her A Re Racl do u Vei
no longer collaboratime) closely in the wor K6 a came - ho C subputis
ne seemed more I h te
to super- S Hhe wwR Le
u Tue
ise, SO hat BalanchinetsWork-struck-peopleas onof alv dial
promising 0
S en y
other handtt nimph Neb
DOSSIT
At nis choreography simply aid not inter-
taree
SU Diaghilev at
Also he had 4
stt
av Le 7me
protégés on his hands, alroady -Lifar, aom Cyait Beau
mont described see
the last TOW of stalls


Handsome
'that Thednsome sun-burned youth whose chief character-
istics were an infectious smile and glowing dark eyes'
(Beaumont's description), and secondly the 'unusually
keen and determined 'Boris Kochno, who had a habit of
half-closing his eyes when he talked, and thirdly
Anton Dolin.
With so much on his hands it was little
wonder that Balanchine found himself working alone at
times, and that Diaghilev soon had a tiff with Anton
Dolin and failed to renew his contract for that year.
Diaghilev was distressed by Dolin's apparently philist-
ine way of life. He always seemed to be playing tennis
or going on picnics---so unlike the Russian protégés
who were excited by the talk at Diaghilev's dinner table,
and even had minds of their own.
Massine went on with his work in London, this time
in On with the Dance, a Noel Coward show presented by
C.B.Cochrane.
The previous year he had choreographed
a series of divertissements in the revue You'd be Sur-
prised which ran at Covent Garden (not yet the State
oBera House).
Some of the numbers were clever but
no one could say that this was in the Diaghilev trad-
And
ition. Aot even Benois could have laid it at the
door of Diaghilev's influence.
It just went to show---
like Mercure---what happened to people's taste when
they were outside his orbit.
In these last years of his life Diaghilev was rarely
satisfied with his own productions.
Yet his seasons
were making money again, to some extent.
The Berlin
season in 1925 was most successful, but lost money.
In London he was backed these days by Lord Rothermere,
and his Coliseum season did well financially.
which
he had a summer season at His Majesty's theatre, and
Arnghil
towards the end of the same year a four-week season at 1250000
the Lyceum theatre at popular prices which ensured
capacity houses but did not seem to please him because


letula' ,
wnghy
of dS lack of grandeur (he/thought it the home of
melodrama).
And perhaps he had a canny idea that
ballet should not become too popular, in case IEteCAL
ne wo orels
became
commercial Steeess The
stultifie cal et
ballet-jamborees of the last two decades seem to have
proved him right.
In London he commissioned Constant Lambert to write
music for a new Romeo and Juliet, with the surrealists
Max Ernst and Joan Mird doing the settings, though
Lambert felt that Christopher Wood would have made
a much more convincing décor than theirs turned out
to be. At the Paris première there was uproar-
from other surrealists who felt that Miro and Ernst
had betrayed them by designing for the bourgeoisie-
and police had to be called in. A Diaghilev had a
Sgordial
pleasant reminder of the good old pre-war days, when
hadheen
a scandal wasya scandal: these 1926 whistles and
scuffles were rather aneamic in comparison, and the
tey
mass of the public was not interested, but # still
did the heart good, totear #
As to the ballet,
with Lifar as Romeo and Karsavina as Juliet, it
started with a ballet-class onstage and ended with
Romeo and Juleit in flying kit about to leave in an
seal
aeroplane, with a rehearsal of the period Romeo and
ni P.
Juliet between them in five episodes. Another new
ballet was La PasyowALt, also written by Kochno,
the choreography, by Balanchine to music by Auric,
and the setting by Pedro Pruna, vire hats ad
designet fr
Les Matelots, Thi was a
peculiar little story, and again almost no story at
all. A telegraph boy arrives to take a swim, and
while he is bathing a young girl runs off with his
bundle of telegrams. A camera crew arrives, torether
with a director and a star. The star does not want
towork and sends them away.
The telegraph boy is
alone with the star and they fall in love.
The young
girl returns and chases the star off, and she and the
tide
telegraph boyjgo away on his bicycle.
Also there was


distiked Tat kug Hav come A-
L sS - - rer L ode 5 L. wern
secepliou JE.S
little dancing, and Cyril Beaumont described it as
'weak in design, feeble in action, slight in dance
invention'.
It was little wonder that people began
to say that Kochno's increasing hold on Diaghilev's
imagination was not to the good.
But for Diaghilev the
'new' ballets were simply trying to come to terms with
the modern world, and necessarily somethings--like Nicolas
Nabokov's Ode---cameoff and others did not: A In his
last years, far from giving way to a kind of senile
belief in youth at any pricec (which is the usual
story) he cast round---yes, with a certain wildness
too---for new ideas in a world that could no longer
find a convincing artistic language in any field.
That was the explanatipon of Romeo and Juliet in flying
kit, far more than a feeble desire for le dernier cri.
The first' 'English ballet, The Triumph of Neptune,
was produced in 1926 too, with music by Lord Berners
(after Diaghilev had cast around among other English
composers from the Elizabethan John Bull to William
Walton), andthre exquisite pantomime-book by Sacheverell
OnCR
Diaghilevs said that stthelt was the only
SitwellDia
Englishman he knew with a 'Russian Ballet outlook'.
This was the year too of the 'Soviet' ballet called
Le Pas d'Acier, With music by Prokoviev and choreo-
graphy by Massinea thersThe second,factory-scene,
with its powerful throbbing rhtythms ,
dancers
Jthe
massing and viding like the parts of a machine,
got a fantastic reception. La Chatte was another
story by Kochno, about the yat who falls in love with
a cat and asks Aphrodite to change it into girl,
intoa love
thus reversing Aesop's fable (where the catjasks to
be made human.
This was, in fact, another 'Greek'
ballet and managed to convey more than other deliber- heliv
ately Greek pieces the/ aneient worship of the human
behiisl lhe
form.
That too went' down well.
The cat was danced
Creek
by Diaghilev's favourite classical ballerina, Spessivas
(fe had returned to the Soviet Union after the closing
of The Sleeping Beauty in London).
He wanted her as


to become a permanent member of the company but the
Paris Opéra got her.
It was difficult enough persuading
her to dance the Cat, which was against her 'ideas'.
Perhaps Diaghilev's greafest problem in his last years
of experiment (meaning simply the presentation of the
unfamiliar) was the fact that dancing lagged far behind
the other arts associated with it. pin so many ways
the choreographer wasat the beginning of the road while
the painter sbe worked with ain was at the end. SomeAny-
thing like the composure and completeness of Indian
dancing, with its use of the neck and fingers and facial
muscles, was still missing in the west.
Stravinsky, having 'betrayed' Diaghilev by writing Le
Baiser de la Fée for Ida Rubtinstein (a fearful piece
of fayness which is still going strong), undertook to
write a new ballet for him, Apollon Musagète, which
Diaghilev came to consider one of the finest works he ever
produced.
Serge Lifar danced Apollo, the three Myses
were Nikitina, Tchernicheva and Dubrovska.
There was
nothing of the earlier Stravinsky fireworks in the music,
as this time the composer had gone to classical sources,
and Balanchine based incredibly lovely sequences on the
academic framework.
André Bauchant did the setting.
Lifar danced superbly.
Of the other two new ballets, Le Fils Prodigue
(with Lifar again) and Le Bal, he felt midly intrigued
by the first but said to Walter Nouvel, 'C'est tout
que_je déteste.' '/Still, he resented the criticism that
Rad
his productions degenerated into acrobatics'.
even thought it necessary to write to The Times about
it, two days before the dress rehearsal of another
'gympastics' ballet, Le Renard (a new version by Lifar,
under the guidance of Larionov).
'Sir,' he wrote, 'the longer the globe revolves,


the less movement we find on it! People may fight
world wars, empires may tumble, a colossal Utopia
may be given birth to, but the inborn traditions of
humanity remain the same.
Social revolutions upset
political statuses, but they do not touch that side
of the human spirit which leads to beauty.
On the
contrary, in such moments one has not got the time
to busy oneself with aesthetic problems.
In a period
of this description we find ourselves at the present
moment, when individual talent and human genius, always
alive, enter like a microbe into the human system,
but then it is refused any support.
'Our century, without halting, interests itself
with new "Mouvements mécaniques", but whenever new
WMouvemenst artistuques 11 occur peofe seem to be more
frightened of being run over by them than by a motor-
car in the street.
For 25 years I have endeavoured
to find a ngw "Mouvement" in the theatre. Society
will have to recognise that my experiements, which
appear dangerous today, become indispensable tomorrow.
The misfortune of ar6 is that everybody thinks he is
entitled to his own judgement.
When a scientist
invents an electrical machine it is only experts
who assume the right to be competent to ceticise,
but when I invent my artistic machine, everybody,
without ceremony, puts his finger into the most
delicate parts of the machine and likes to run it his


own way.
'But let us come to the events of today!
'The new appreciation of my "Spectacles" of today
is a series of exclamations:
What an "Etrange",
"Extravagant", "Repellent" show, and the new definition
of the choreography are "Athletics" and "Acrobatics".
The show, before anything, must be "Etrange".
I can pic-
ture to myself the bewilderment of the people who saw
the first electric lamp, who heard the first word on the
telephone.
My first electric bell for the British
public was the presentation of the Polovtsian Dances
of Prince Igor.
The small audience could not then
tolerate this eccentric and acrobatic savagery, and
they fled. And this only happened in 1911, at
Covent Garden.
At the very same theatre in 1929
the critics announced that my dancers had transformed
themselves into "athletes" and my choreographic parts
were "Pure acrobatics".
'I have no reason here to discuss this grave
question in detail, but, in a few words: The classical
dance has never been and is not today the Russian Ballet.
Its birthplace was France, it grew up in Italy, and has
only been conserved in Russia. Side by side with the
classical dance there always existed the national or
character dance, which has given the evolution of the
Russian Ballet.
I do not know of a single classical
movement which was born of the Russian folf-dance.
Why have we got to take our inspiration from the
minuet of the French Court and not from the Russian
village festival?
That which appears to you acrobat-
ic is a dilletante terminology for our national dance
step.
The mistake really, in fact, goes much deeper,
because it is undoubtedly the Italian classical school
which has introduced into the dance the acrobatic
elements. The coarsest acrobatic tricks are the toe-
dancing, the "doubles tours en l'air", next to the
classical "Pirouettes en dehors" , and the hateful
32 "Fouettés", that is where acrobatics should be


attacked.
In the plastic efforts of Balanchine,
in The Prodigal Son, there are far less acrobatics
than in the final classical Pas de deux of Aurora's
Wedding.
'Monday next I am presenting to the public two
new items. Lifar is, for the first time, in charge
of the dancers; he is the inventor of the choreography
of the Renard, and it is there where really one has
the first opportunity to talk of acrobatic ballet.
It is not all Lifar's principle, but just because
he could not see any other form to express the acro-
batic music of Stravinsky.
Stravinsky is, without
doubt, the acrobat of sound, as Picasso is the acrobat
of outline.
Several confusuctive elements have intro-
duced themselves into the field of acrobatics, and
"Constructivisme" in painting, décor, music, and
choreography is the craze of today.
'The forms change.
In painting and in scenery
this craze is finishing.
But in music, where we were
full of impressionism and neo-sentimentalism, and in
choreography, where we paipd reverence to the classical
dance, "constructivisme" acquired an extraordinary
S cote )
pstrength..
On the outside cover of Ftzhe Renard
Stravinsky has written: "This ballet msut be executed
by buffoons, acrobats, or dancers".
Lifar has taken
dancers and real acrobats of the circus, and the task
of the chpreographist has been to combine the plastic
of the circus and dance tricks, while Stravinsky compels
the bass to sing with a female falsetto voice and ex-
presses the sentimentality of the fox by the sounds of
the cymbalumof the restaurant. The public and the
critics will probably be annoyed with my two young
friends, but they are both "débutats", and they are
not afriad of it.
The more the gloye revolves, the less movement
we find on it.'
On July 15v1929 Diaghilev gave a public dress re-
hearsal of Le Renard for a few guests who filled the first
two rows of the Covent Garden stalls. One of them was


the loyal Cyril Beaumont.
Diaghilev stood at the
head of the short flight of stairs leading to the stalls
inborder to receive his guests the reyal way. 'This was
the first time I had seen Diaghilev during the season and I
was shocked by the change in his appearance since the


year before, I wrote Beaumont.
'His cheeks were of a
strange leaden pallor and he appeared to be a very sick
man.
The cynical glance, the familiar curl of the lip,
were still there, but he seemed to be unusually reserved
and uncommunicative'.
played f capacit lou use Himghout,
Le Rad
His last Paris season,
He seemed
tortings
even to have mastered the financial problem.
fa Herext He approached Hindemith for a new work.
But, as he
two year, told the adoring Lifar later on in Venice, 'I'm tired,
so terribly, terribly tired! I He had diabetes and did
not Aflet his doctor's advice to take a cure. He went on
eating chocolates and drinking champagne.
Ama/He had
a new passion---rare Ressian books. For hours he would
tred (Prots lie/in his hotel rooms A -Paris, Rome, Munich. pasting
together the disintegrating pages of the Acts of the
Apostles in a Moscow edition of 1564, or a Book of Hours,
or a Lvov New Testament, or the Sermons of Grigorius
of Nazianz, printed in 1665. He had returned full
circle, perhaps, to his early indifference to ballet.
It had been like any art, an excuse, a formula for the
spirit, and finally the language was discarded for a
growing sense of the real thing that lay just ahead.
In July 1929 he was in Baden-Baden, and Princess de
jos
Polignac noticed a trthochine difference in him when
they met there at a concert.
Travelling with Igor
Markevitch, whose debut as a composer he had arranged
the previous season, L They went on to Munich and
the Salzburg festival.
HT - mre Twas S MoTkIng
Strauss tried to interest him in his Electra, and he
listened to Hindemith's Cantata.
He wrote to Serge
Lifar from Munich, 'My sustenance here is Wagner and
Mozart.
What geniuses, and how well performed here (in
L.Salzburg)! Today, at Tristan, I shed bitter tears.
Books take up a lot of my attention....Don't forget
your 'cat' who embraces and blesses you' (after which
a sketch of a cat with its tail in the air).
He left Salzburg on August 7 for Venice, where
he was to meet Lifar the following day. Lifar,


arriving from Paris, expected to see him at the station,
but Diaghilev was not there.
He hurried to the Lido,
expecting to see him in the foyer or the lounge of
the Hotel des Bains, but instead saw him waving from
his bedroom window, deathly pale, 'aged, enfeebled
and bedraggled'.
Typically Diaghilev had left all
his underwear in Germany, and lacked even a handkerchief.
A few days later he took to his bed, and Kochno arrived.
rose
His temperature mounted, Coco Chanel and Misia Sert
came from the Duke of Westminster's yacht, in which
they were holidaying, and paid him an unexpected visit.
They stayed with him for an hour.
They put out to sea
afterwards but became so anxious about him that they
returned.
By now Diaghilev's fever was dangerously
high, and he was delirious. He recognsied Misia and
whispered to her, 'Oh, comme je suis heureux!
How well
white suits you Misia, you must always wear it!'
And afterwards, when they were gone, he kept repeating
to Kochno, 'They were So young, all in white!
They
were So white!' He stayed awake all night, and at dawn,
just before dropping off to sleep, he murmured, 'Forgive me.
A German specialist, Dr Martin, was called in, and
could not say what was wrong.
He suggested rheumatism
or typhoid fever, and a cable was sent to Paris, to
Diaghilev's doctor, asking for a vaccine, as there was
none in Venice.
A nurse from the American Hospital
came to look after him. He lost consciousness.
He awoke for the last time and looked up at Maisia,
who was sitting by him: 'You're my one true friend,
the only one I ever had'.
Then he added in Russian,
'It seems to me as though I'm drunk'.
Towards dawn
next day. his breathing became most tortuous.


6.00 a.m. on August 19 1929, at the age of fifty-seven,
he died, 'on water', as it had been predicted, in that
magically evanescent city that was his real home. His
head sank on to his shoulder, and a tear rolled down his
cheek.
He was buried on San Michele, as Stravinsky was over
forty years later.
The material of fifty-five ballets, in a Paris warehouse,
were seized by the French government, as he left no will.
The Russian Ballet survived for a time at Montecarlo.
But its only reason for existing, as the vehicle of one
will and
man's imagination, had disappeared.
And it was there-
fore natural that the de Basil company's performances
should be simply a memorial.